Obama is For Life-I’m for Death

Tags

ISIS, religious fundamentalism, right-wing crazies, violence

So we can start off with the “this is much ado about nothing” which of course begs the question, “why bother?”

Cuz a girl’s gotta write since it’s my passion, and there is always the miniscule hope, (for we all know that it springs eternal) that some poor bastard out there who was “damn the President for dissin’ Christians” will awaken from the fog of dissonance and the clear bell of enlightenment will ring forth: “I was once stupid and now I am not.”

Such is at least my justification for this essay.

I just happened to be tuned in the other morning as the President gave the traditional speech at the National Prayer Meetin’ which is held annually in Washington where all the sinners come to pretend they are doin’ their very best to apply God’s law as they slip another check from Exxon-Mobile and JP Morgan, into their $3000 suits.

The President, as we all know, has pretty much given up on the idea that facts, and good logic will get him anywhere, and as of late has pursued a policy of “screw you, try to stop me” and a general “fuck you” to Congressional Republicans who are fresh off the latest round of “ain’t got no bootstraps with which to pay for healthcare? Well die, you dog, and make room for those who do.”

As every good American knows, there’s the guys in the black hats (bad) and the guys in the white hats (good) always near to the scene. America is built upon this scenario and we have all the cheesy old westerns to prove it. Let us introduce the latest and best entry into the black hats category. A group known as ISIS (not to be confused with an Egyptian god) or ISIL if you have a clue what Levant means.

ISIL is a slipshod group of thugs who claim a perverted understanding of Islam which they use to justify their attempts to take over the world. Since their threat is pretty much everywhere, that means just about everyone else gets to be the guys in the white hats, but Merika of course always has to lead, cuz we are the super, super white hats.

Anyway, if you hadn’t noticed, we have a fair share of Arab Muslims (and Arabs in general) who live in the US, and boy I sure wouldn’t want to be them, since Americans are flighty people who tend to assess blame against whole swaths of people since it’s just easier. We learned that from the movies too, where it’s often best to “shoot first and ask questions later.” Anyway, even the dumbest of President (that would be you Dubya) have realized that it’s really not a good idea to let the great stupid mobs of American whiteness carry on in this manner, and so they are always at pains of ‘splainin’ to the stupid white people that NOT ALL ARABS ARE MUSLIMS AND MORE IMPORTANT NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE KILLERS. In fact the huge majority are not, but are just peace-loving, family-seeking individuals like you and me.

Now Dubya can say nice things about Arab Muslims, and even hold hands with them, and nobody thinks a thing bad about it.   He can even share a short peck and not even be thought particularly gay. Just good old American manners.

And he can say all kinds of nice things about Muslims to remind dumb American white people that it’s never a good idea to paint a brush too broad.

“America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all.” Presidential Message Eid al-Fitr December 5, 2002

But when President Obama reminds us that there are bad people in all religions historically who have done really bad things

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history.  And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . .So this is not unique to one group or one religion.  There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.  In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try.

the hue and cry from the extreme right in this country rose like a phoenix, screaming that such utterly evil words had never been spoken in all of our democracy.  Former Governor of Virginia, Jim Gillmore was “outraged” having never heard a more terrible thing from the lips of a President. Santorum and Limbaugh chimed in with their mortification of Christianity today being compared to the unspeakable ISIS killers. And on it went, the rallying cry being “this is not a moral equivalency!!”

And it was not suggested as such either, if you read the text.

It was meant to remind everyone that while the killings by ISIS are horrific, we as humans have been doing horrific things to each other since the inception of so-called civilization, and a good deal of it has been veiled in perverted religious beliefs. People find it most convenient to put on the mask of religion to disguise their blatant lust for power and to express their hatred and fear. It has always been so. ISIS is no different in that respect than all the others. It is no more heinous, no more bloody certainly, and no more representative of the faith it espouses than any of the others were.

A few examples should suffice.

African-Americans in this country were often burned at the stake during slavery and Jim Crow. If you don’t think it was done in the name of Christianity, then read the words of the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stevens:

[T]he first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society … With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so.

It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws.

The charred body of Jesse Washington pictured above was in 1905 in Waco. The deaths of countless other African-Americans during Jim Crow by lynching, by the KKK (which always has a “Christian” front), occured. George Wallace invoked the name of God dozens of times in his 1963 inaugural  address where he also famously uttered the words, “Segregation now. . .segregation tomorrow. . .segregation forever.” 

The extreme Right-Wingers will tell you that the Crusades were wars of defense. Yet the arguable owners of that land were Palestinians and Jews. Muslims lay claim based on Muhammad. Yet Christians have no real claim certainly any greater than Jews or Muslims. All claim the area as holy.  Yet when the first Crusade ended, the city of Jerusalem was cleared of all non-Christians, and by cleared I mean murdered. Jews who barricaded themselves in their synagogues were burned to death and survivors sold into slavery. All told the Crusades occurred over about 200 years, ending in 1291 or so.

When Saladin recaptured Jerusalem, only then were Jews allowed to return and live in relative freedom.  This was in 1187, nearly a hundred years later.

They claim that the Inquisition was “political” as if that means something.

In fact the Inquisition was instituted by Pope Innocent III and set up by Pope Gregory IX. Confessors to heresy were burned alive. In 1242 the Talmud was condemned and burnings of Jews began in France in 1288. The Inquisition was begun in Spain for fear of “secret Jews” and the Conversos (those that had converted at pain of death in the first place and were suspected of retaining their true Judaic beliefs). In Seville alone more than 700 Jews were burned to death. By the time it ended in 1808, nearly 32,000 died by fire.

And the Inquisition was not just in Spain and France. It spread to Portugal and then to New World colonies and throughout Asia as well. 

We need not but mention the Troubles in Ireland in which religion was the division between sides. Or that of India/Pakistan again, where religion affiliation defined the sides.

It is not that religion perverts human souls, but that some small sick group humans use religion to perpetrate their own evils upon the world.

President Obama, in the hopes of tamping down the ugly nativism that is so beginning to plague this nation with its ugly hate, attempted to remind us that we all have blood upon our hands. ISIS is but the latest in a long line of evil people doing evil things in the name of their perverted version of God.

** Let me recommend Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family which documents the shady and weird folks behind the National Prayer Breakfast.

**Also a great read is Karen Armstrong’s Fields of Blood which argues that religion has played  a lesser role in most violence historically, however much it may have been the cover story. I’ve not read this but I’ve read others of hers and she is a uniquely qualified religious scholar who is highly respected for her scholarship. She was once a nun herself.

 

 

 

Violence and Pacifism, An Either Or Proposition?

Tags

morality, torture, War

Let’s be clear. I have no answers here. I have questions and beliefs, and that is all. I’m not suggesting what we should do, other than have this conversation, no matter how unpleasant and uncomfortable it makes us.

Anyone who suggests there are easy answers, or who whats to “leave it to the experts” and sweep it under the rug of “not my pay grade” be damned. You can’t avoid your complicity by refusing to be a part of the issue.

The discussion of war/pacifism, torture, rules of war, and so on, have confronted the human mind since the beginning of human interactions. While a certain defense of one’s personal integrity seems genetically normal, beyond that, we argue through the ages about how much is too much, when, and how?

As I said, there are no easy answers. It is for instance easy for me to come down on the side of pacifism, since it is my natural proclivity to choose life over harm to every and all creatures. Yet as a carnivores, I am immediately confronted with my hypocrisy, though I can respond quickly with “well exactly what do you propose to do with pigs and cattle, turn them out to fend for themselves as easy prey for predator animals?” Not your problem?

The world consists of very few individuals who will willingly stand still in the face of a direct lethal attack, and say, “do what you must,  I will not lift a hand to defend myself.” And by doing so, do you contribute to the violence of another?

Both these are acts of violence whether you accept them or not. A strict pacifist can neither consume meat nor defend themselves against attack.

Trying to cut them out of the mix, and then say, well all else, I come down on the side of no violence is just as fraught with exceptions. One can, and I do, argue that I will not kill 2 to save 10, but figure that fate must be allowed to play out as it will. But turn that figure into killing 10 to save 10 million, and you see the dilemma. Now it looks quite a bit different. Surely Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified on such grounds.

The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strike proved a disaster and surely violates in principle and act, the idea of “just war” theory. The Bush Doctrine might prove workable in the hands of a bright, moral being, but proved horrific in the hands of a stupid man egged on by arguably evil men at his side.

Just war “sounds” right, and surely has the imprimatur of the Catholic Church, but is it really just? How about all that talk of “rules of war”? Does not tidying up the killing to MOSTLY the perpetrators just prolong what would otherwise be so horrendous as to cause cessation? Do we appease the warmongers by pursuing military targets and not civilian? Was not some of the reasoning behind the US entry into WWII the magnitude of the killing? Was it not motivated in part by the inhumanity of the German war machine with its blitzkriegs, and the indiscriminate unfairness of the Japanese “surprise?”  Would it all have been better if they had followed the “rules?”

It is not as ugly to push buttons from Colorado to kill convoys in Yemen, where yes, we allow for “collateral” damage? Would it not be better to force humans to face up to the bodies they produce? Was not part of the argument about pilots the nicety of not having to see the mangled flesh they produced by their bombs?

Torture has been in the human playbook for as long at least as recorded history. We burned and drew, quartered, and stocked, long before waterboarding came along. Technology brought us advances which brought electrodes, cattle prods, chain saws, drills, and a host of other household items to the torture table. We justify all this of course by the need for intelligence.

We do the unthinkable because it is necessary to protect the greater good, so we tell ourselves. Our television screens are full nowadays of “heroes” who regularly break, stab, beat, human bodies in the quest for the information necessary to “save lives” and protect our way of life.

What way of life are we protecting in the end? The life that condones and is willing to survive as a result of such human acts?

Where is the line? And who calls it? Is Jack Bauer the one you want to decide? Or a feckless Congress who measures everything by political leverage and opportunism, all too often limited to their own personal professional lives? Do you want to throw the dice on an individual you vote for when the entire game is now rigged by the rich and powerful whose interests are almost never going to be yours and who live by the credo, that the birds do not consider the interests of the ants they eat?

Are we any better than they when we do what they do in the name of stopping them? Do we want to be better than they? Do we care beyond our own hides in the end? If not, then we need to stop flooding the world with our proclamations that we are moral and they  are not. We need to stop accusing them of violations when we are committing them at an even faster pace.

There is a reason we armed the Taliban against the Russians and then proclaimed them our enemy after 9-11. There is a similar reason interred the Japanese during WWII. We arm the bad guys all over South America because they agree to our long-term goals, while their peoples writhe in agony from the tortures they employ. We enlist countries with “softer” rules to be our locations where we can avoid our rules of law, and mistreat humans in the name of saving democracy.

I say all this and then I sit with my head in my hands because I don’t know where to come down on the oft used scenario: you have in custody the man who knows where the hydrogen bomb has been planted in NYC. You have six hours to find it. If it goes off, millions will die, and the country may well fall. Well? torture him or not?

Perhaps the scenario is unfair, perhaps using the worst-case scenario is unnecessary and unfair. But once you allow for it, then how about Springfield? Or Kalamazoo? How small does the scale have to get before we say, too far?

Does justice demand something else? Does it demand an all or nothing? Or does it ask us to submit to a conclusion unpalatable but possibly real? As long as humans care about living, we have to admit we are natural killing machines, and do it as efficiently as possible with as little collateral damage (innocent death) as possible?

Is there a philosophy that can cut through all this and make it a simple argument that cannot be denied?

I surely wish for one, but so far, I have not found it.

I remain sickened. I know what I would stop, but I can’t give you a logical play it out to the end answer that works for all things in all times.

If you can, please tell me.

But damn don’t avoid the issue, for we all are complicit whether you like it or not.

Undoing Christianist Drivel One Knot at a Time

Tags

Christianist, damnable lies, fundamentalism

It’s been a week of people pissin’ me off.

Not that my personal life has been that way. No, thankfully, it’s been rather grand, with the kitchen redo going splendidly and my beloved and I agreeing on most every sub-step of that adventure. Who woulda guessed we would agree on faucets!

But oh, the lame-minded Christianists have been pushing my button once again, but given their IQ limitations, what could one expect.

I also garnered another bit of info that stands to reason given their lacking abilities as well.

So let’s get to setting some records straight.

Facebook memes are funny things as I’ve stated before. Some are quite accurate, but a whole lot tend to seem superficially so but fail in the deeper contemplation.

Sometimes, they are blatant lies from start to finish.

A Christianist “friend” of mine on Facebook (you know the term I trust–one who proclaims Jesus as their one and only but uses the bible and their faith to justify hating who they already hate/fear/are jealous of, etc. [Facebook “friend” being a loose term at best for people who read your shit and whose stuff you are subjected to as is the case here]), posted a meme that on its face was silly, stupid, untrue, hateful, and most UnChristian-like in every single respect.

The pastor of this “friend” allegedly  quoted from some other dude, something to this effect: (I have to paraphrase because the said Christianist when confronted with actual facts, deleted the entire meme from her wall rather than allow any of her “friends” to see actual facts.)

“Rome had a lot of “rabble” who were taken care of by the Roman government. But instead of being satisfied, they just demanded more and more, until finally Rome was bankrupt and then this rabble sacked the city, which was, as we all know, the end of Rome. America too has it’s “rabble”, which was corrected identified as the 47% by that paragon of goodness (my hyperbole) Mr. Romney, who was utterly vilified for stating what turned out to be the truth. Now we are saddled with a government (Obama of course) which has allowed/created a (1) housing crisis (2) runaway debt through over spending (3) a huge deficit (4) Obamacare and (4) insufficient sun on Sunday! (okay I added that). But the rabble won’t stop demanding and of course the inference is clear–so will go the way of America just like Rome.”

Oh where to begin.

First of all, pretty much all that Rome did for the citizens of Rome was provide bread to those who were starving, along with olive oil and wine. The only other thing provided was entertainment in the guise of the circuses. Rome was not sacked by its urban poor, although surely there were uprisings from time to time but these were not threatening to Rome’s existence.

Rome fell through a series of invasions by outsiders called “barbarians” (some of whom were no doubt the very ancestors of idiots like the above who don’t know history at all). Does the name Visigoth mean anything to you? How about the Vandals?

So it is utterly false to claim that the “rabble” destroyed Rome because they weren’t given what they wanted.

What was this “rabble” of Rome? They were in fact urban poor, citizens of the state but with no land, and no ability to make a living. Sort of like people in the US who have lost their jobs when their company chose to build a cheap factory overseas and employ cheap labor. Sort of like people who are trying to raise families on non-living wages. Sort of like small business owners and farmers pushed out of a living by mega corporations who undercut them in prices so deeply that they can’t compete. Sort of like that.

But more than that, they WERE THE FREAKING PEOPLE JESUS CALLED US ALL TO CARE FOR.

The Christianist now calls the poor, the 47% or rabble.

And then we go to Obama.

Now under no circumstances that remotely relate to truth is Obama responsible for the housing melt-down. That happened as we all recall under the watch of wonder boy, George. Now we know that the demise of Glass-Steagall had much to do with that, and Democrats bear their responsibility in that as well, but please, it cannot be laid at the feet of Obama.

Obama did not “run up massive deficits” either, but has paid them down and kept spending to levels not seen since Eisenhower. It was boy George who did that, but beginning and running two wars and a drug prescription law on a credit card.

Now I pointed all these pesky facts out in my comments. And of course, what happened is that the meme was deleted. Not with an “oh thanks for the information, my bad” but just deleted. I might have ignored this had I not found a similar in tone meme (the left is “intolerant of ideas” –the ideas being my bigoted thoughts about transgendered people “deciding to be girls so they can use women’s locker rooms”) that had not been deleted but deleted to remove the comments I made, and then reposted. This one also was applauded by the woman’s “pastor” as good Christian truth.

In perusing the wall, I noted a remark made that suggested why this woman gets so much wrong: “I do my best never to watch the news.”

I’m tired of people who use religion to hide behind all the while twisting it into grotesque shapes to fit their sick fears and hatreds. They are not Christians at all.

Next up, what’s happening in Demagography today!

Amid All the Eulogies, a Sobering History

Tags

GOP, History, Mandela, racism, South Africa

Nelson Mandela, died a couple of days ago, and the airways have been filled with tributes and analysis of his impact on the political landscape. Indeed Mandela stands forth with a handful of others of the 20th century whom we can look up to as real fighters for freedom and justice. His name is equal to that of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez, Lech Waleza in the pantheon of people we adjudge as heroes.

Mandela started as a peaceful revolutionary and democratic socialist in South Africa. The massacre at Sharpeville was said to have radicalized him and led to a more militant Mandela and a upturn violent activities. He co-founded the MK in 1961, becoming ultimately the ANC’s armed wing. He sought help from Casto and other Communist states in his struggle to help his people. After his conviction in 1964 for treason and his incarceration, he developed the present philosophy for which he is noted, and upon his release from prison in 1990.

He went on to become the president of the country in 1994, and today South Africa stands as a model of reconciliation between black and white citizens. Of course that doesn’t mean that all is well there by any means, but Mandela set the tone of forgiveness which allowed the country to move forward instead of devolving into a bloody war.

But most all of this is common knowledge. Today, the US, like countries around the world, are paying tribute to this freedom fighter. Yet it was not so very long ago that things were quite different here as regards this individual.

It is clear that there was no real desire in this country to come to Mandela and Black Africans in general initially. As was true in the 60’s as regards the Vietnam war, the impetus for change came from university campuses across the nation, as students challenged their schools financial investment in the rich industries of South Africa. Local governments in some cases followed suit.

Finally a coalition of Democrats and liberal and moderate Republicans passed a comprehensive bill called the Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986. The near-god of the Right, Ronald Reagan, promptly vetoed it. Back it went to the Congress, where people like Jessie Helms claimed that Mandela was nothing more than an ungodly communist aligned with the Soviet Union. In fact old Jessie led a filibuster against the law.

Other well-known Republicans who voted no to over-riding the presidential veto. Among them were: Phil Gramm, Joe Barton, Dick Cheney, Ralph Hall and Howard Coble and Hal Rodgers. Rodgers, Barton, and Coble  had the gall to commemorate Mandela after his death, making no mention of the fact that they had tried to stop the imposition of sanctions against South Africa to end apartheid and his very imprisonment. Present members of the senate who voted against the bill are: Thad Cochran, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley.

For the first and only time in the 20th century, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans over-rode the President’s veto and the bill became law. The rest is history.

No doubt before long, the tea party will “adopt” Mandela as one of their own, much as they have laughingly tried to do with Martin Luther King, Jr.

But we remember that the Republicans again, in very large numbers were on the wrong side of history back in 1986. Cheney of course says his vote was proper and that Mandela has “mellowed” since then.

Indeed, some Democrats were as well. Mandela was not taken off the “terrorist watch list” until 2008.

Some “modern” wannabe leaders are finding the going a bit tough in praising Nelson Mandela. Ted Cruz gave the obligatory tribute and was vilified for it by his cadre of insanely crazy followers.   It’s best we don’t forget that either.

 

Is This What We Bargained For?

Tags

economics, editorial, political theory

 

Illustrations from sergemaksimov.com

Much as we wold like to think otherwise, we haven’t progressed all that far from the caves we originally inhabited.

 

But we have to go back that far to figure out how we got to where we are today. We indisputably live in a country where the most of the wealth of the country now resides in a very small portion of the population.

I read  a blog post by Robert Reich yesterday, and it got me to thinking. Reich says that we are at a defining point: we must determine what we think government is for. I tend to agree with him, mostly because I think we have long forgot its original intent.

Thomas Hobbes taught that primitive man was both brutish and short-lived. He lived in a world of chaos, with danger ever at his door, and hunger never far from his mind. Each day was an exercise in simple survival.

I tend to agree with that. For whatever reason, pure evolution or something more transcendent, we are bred for community. We learned that banding together helped ensure greater safety and we were more able to secure enough food.

As time goes on, and communities enlarge, we build on the past. Like a very few other evolved animals, we are able to transfer lessons learned. So we begin to herd animals, and we begin to farm. We in essence begin to settle in place at least for parts of the year. And with that come a host of new problems.

Problems that need to be addressed communally. Who is to farm, who is to hunt, who provides security. Who makes weapons, and bowls, and clothing. And how to trade ones services for the necessities of shelter and food? All these are discussed, and agreements are made.

Over time, this develops into a form of government. A class of citizens are allowed to build roads, provide security, teach youngsters, provide healing and so forth. And we do this by freely giving up some of our autonomy as individuals. We give of our assets (taxes) to provide for our common good.

And such things work fairly well, especially when everyone has an equal vote, and those that are in the minority are not severely burdened with the results, at least no more so than the majority.

But we as humans are by nature not equal. We are individuals, and therefore, some are naturally brighter than others, some are more ambitious, and frankly some are just luckier at crucial points. And thus, over time, some become “wealthier” than their neighbors.

Now, that is not important in and of itself, since what one does with wealth is not universal. Some will turn it over to the community to build a new dam, or build new canoes. But others will use it to hire help to do their share of work while they go off to other pursuits. Some will enjoy the accumulation for its own sake. Some will see the possibilities of “getting their way” with the power of their money. The offer of a dam can be used to extract some desire.

We have, over several hundred years, concluded that a free enterprise or free market system is the fairest method of engaging in wealth building and the distribution of services. We all grew up with learning about the laws of supply and demand. People won’t buy what they don’t want, but they will what they do. Those who build what people want, will succeed, and so will their workers, who will get higher wages, and thus buy more themselves.

Everybody is happy.

But then, the world greatly enlarges, and we aren’t just competing locally for the dollar of the consumer. Other countries with their goods and services make offers. And they may, in order to get the business, offer lower prices, and better services. And so a free market is jeopardized. Today, our government subsidies farming, energy, drugs, and a host of industries, all to “level the field” in some way, or to keep things running smoothly.

I am no economist. I just know what I see. And our “free markets” largely unregulated, has led to a place where government seems to work only for the rich, enhancing and growing their wealth at an alarming rate, while the middle class has nearly gone extinct, and the lower class and poor grows exponentially.

I read yesterday where a Russian just paid 88 MILLION DOLLARS FOR A CONDO IN MANHATTAN. This is simply insane.

Republicans think the answer is to free the markets even more.

Democrats think that the rich need to be taxed of their excess.

Neither side may be right. Perhaps, we must accept the fact that the free market model is no longer appropriate to the global world we live in.

If this model were set out before us, as we sat about the fire in the community cave, would we agree to it?

I rather doubt it. This is not the government any of us 99%’s would think was fair.

Some folks are more capable than others, and apparently over time, they will take over the system. They are like card counters in a game of Blackjack. The game is rigged. There are no bootstraps to pull up. There is not amount of “hard work” that will or can make a difference any more to average people.

It’s time to redesign our economic system to account for the world as it is today. We need to compact for a form a government that works for all of us, not just some.  What might that be? Don’t ask me.

I seldom have answers, I just have the questions. Do you have any ideas?

Related articles

• Ian Fletcher: Why Free-market Economics Is a Fraud (huffingtonpost.com)
• The “Free Market Game” Explained (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)

Honoring All Who Serve

Tags

America, the human condition, Veterans Day, War

It is not who we are but what we have become.

I shall remain firmly convinced of that, for to conclude that we are violent by nature, by DNA, by proclivity, is to have no hope. We are doomed.

Looking upon the picture featured today, gives us a historical perspective of war in this country. But truly, we can, without any trouble at all, look deep into the past, and see a pattern of war that has existed nearly as far back as we have recorded our collective lives.

Thucydides wrote of the Peloponnesian Wars, and Caesar wrote of the Wars with Gaul. Numberous others have written of our World Wars, our Wars of Roses, and our Revolutions. We have our “remember the Maine” and “remember the Alamo”. We have iconic photos of raising flags over distant lands, and of naked children running down roads burned by napalm.

We have seen the crematoria and the mounds of human bones. We have seen people hacked and beaten, and fired up. We have seen the horrors on our television screens, and we have thought that we “knew” war.

We have not of course. We have not breathed it in, have not suffered the stench of rot, have not see the maggots and last vestiges of  life turned ghost. We have not had to pick up and bury. We have not felt the raw sharp pain of utter terror. We have no gathered our friend, no longer recognizable, to our breast and cried in some surreal moment when our minds disconnect and we cannot make our brains function.

But they have. Those that serve us by keeping all this horror at bay for us. They allow us to worry about what to fix for dinner, and whether these pair of shoes is a good match for the new skirt, or whether we should invest in a new coffeepot. They dig in the dirt, and erase the signs of death and inhumanity while we flip through channels and choose the movie fare for the evening.

They are in uniform sometimes, and sometimes not. They act out of patriotism, or out of raw need to help create a better life for themselves or their families. They suspend their lives, offering up months and years to be used as fodder in the great war machines, declared or otherwise. They point weapons at other humans and  in their minds create the scenario that makes it correct for them, at that moment to pull a trigger, ending the life of another human.

We see some of this carnage as honorable, and some as not. It depends in large part on which side of the street you are standing. For each side, in our side-less slaughter sees itself as some moral keeper of the right. Whether led by ideology or theology, we all, warrior and spectator, develop explanations for why this must be.

And of course, there is no explanation worthy of human beings. We are taking the easy way out, which makes it all the more a crime that we continue. We kill out of fear, naked and ugly. We accuse others of greed, whether it be monetary or simple power. But in the end, it comes down to fear, as most of our negative anxieties do. We kill because it is simply the fastest way to end the fear that plagues us. It is a temporary solution, but at least it is one. And by the time that all of it has fallen apart again, it will be the next generation who will bear the new burden.

It has gone on so long, so very long that we know no other way. Would that some alien race would step in and take away our weapons of war and force us to face the truth. We will perish together or survive together. Together is the operative word here.

 We are a species that is communal in nature. That is our nature. We are not lone carnivores, coming together only for quick and frantic mating rituals to perpetuate our race. We cannot survive alone, physically or emotionally. We are in this together.

We have a planet, that does not have arbitrary lines of demarcation. There are no borders other than the human constructs we create to separate ourselves from ourselves. Resources are strewn across the landscape of the planet in an arbitrary yet functional basis dependent upon climate and pure luck. Nobody “owns” it simply by standing upon it. Attempts to do so, lead to fear on someone else’s part, and then to violence to protect or secure one’s well-being.

This has all been said before.

I do honor those who have given “the last full measure” yet, I cannot help but cry out in dismay that we never seem to get on with it. We are like a needle caught in a scratch on an old vinyl record–unable to free ourselves from ourselves as the needle cannot jump forward and continue the melody.

Remember all who suffer from violence this day, but especially those who offer themselves to protect you, to give you a better life. The mechanism is shit, but the motive is pure. Honor the motive.

**Please remember that our veterans have higher unemployment, are a larger percentage of our homeless, suffer more from alcoholism and drug abuse, and have more psychiatric problems that are warranted by their actual numbers. We need to help our men and women who have been damaged by war–that is all of them.

Amen.

Related articles

• The Art of War: Honoring the Fallen for a Lifetime (lightbox.time.com)
• Dorian de Wind: A Veteran’s Ring of Honor (huffingtonpost.com)

Somebody Needs a Bifocal Adjustment

Tags

Alexander the Great, economics, God and the GOP, Herman Cain, History, Humor, Michele Bachmann, The Contrarian

It always starts out the same way. The way? I was minding my own business.

As is usual, in the early morning, MSNBC was on. I was busy with house stuff (I spend all the day cleaning and cooking as a good housewife should).

The Contrarian was sitting and watching Chuck Todd. Well, more to the point, he was reading the “crawl”.  Suddenly this:

“My God has California lost its collective mind?” he shouted.

I set down my pail and mop, wiped my weary brow with the back of my hand, dried my hands on my apron, and tucked a loose curl back under my kerchief.

“What has California done now?” I asked in the usual innocence I maintain, hoping against hope that the response will be sane.

“Why, they’ve banned miners from using tanning beds! Can you believe that?” he screeched.

My brain went into overdrive as I tried to fathom what, why and, well, how this impacted my life, and where was the sense in all this.  “Huh?” I managed.

“My God woman, those people spend the vast majority of their existence underground! To prohibit them from getting the vitamin D they need, in a relaxed environment seems draconian at best and downright evil. The TeaBaggers are right, we are turning into a nanny state!”

I hoisted myself up off my knees, shaking my head, and making my way to the living room, where his Highness sat in regal glory with remote control in hand. “What in the world are you talking about? This makes no sense.” I sighed.

“Here it comes again, read the crawl. See?” he smartly pointed.

I looked at the bottom of the screen. Sure enough I saw it. “California bans minors from using tanning beds.”

“You damn fool, it says MINORS, M-I-N-O-R-S, not MINERS! I should have known. Only you could misread it. Now let me get back to dinner. It’s Chateaubriand tonight, you lucky dog.”

♦

Ya gotta laugh. All the GOP candidates pretty much say the same thing. God called them to run for President. They resisted, they were noble in recognizing their own unworthiness. But God persisted, God will have his choices against all odds. Just ask Moses, or David, or any of the other poor Israelites who protested, “Not me Lord, you can’t mean me?”

Herman Cain is but the last to “answer the call.

I said all the candidates. I was wrong. One has never claimed God called him. Mitt, he still just wants it. He wants it so bad that it really makes you feel a little sick to your stomach watching him pander and plead. “Will ya like me now?” he asks as he wanders about the land, changing positions on everything, looking for “clear reception.”

♦

Aww, dang it. Can’t they let our heroes be?

Alexander the Great? Well, yes, he didn’t get the appellation “Great” for being a pizza delivery boy ya know.

Silly historians, always doing stupid things like research and changing what I thought I knew about something and somebody. Geesh.

I mean Alex was tutored by Aristotle for goodness sake.

Anyway, a delightful review of the books recently out on the Macedonian wonder. Or was he?

♦

The Grio jumps in with a good piece on Herman Cain, who is doing the bidding of the GOP, by adopting their racist rhetoric. Cain now claims that there is really no racism in America, sufficient to inhibit anyone of color who works hard.

There is a certain type of black American who actually believes this crap, they need to believe in their “self-made” status. Herm may be one of them, though it’s mighty hard to believe he can believe his own garbage.

Wearerespectablenegroes continues to probe the psyche of Herm. Not a pretty thing no matter what your conclusion.

♦

Slogans are fine things. They are usually easy to remember, and make fine rallying-round points. But when slick, easy to remember slogans are used to address serious and massive problems, like the economy, you can almost be sure they mask a lot of really bad thinking.

Take Herm’s 9-9-9 plan for the economy. Please take it! Oops, sorry, I was channelling Henny Youngman for a moment.  Anyway, Think Progress lays out the real real downside of Herm’s simplistic panacea for our economic woes.

Hint: flat taxes almost always hit the poor the hardest. This one is no exception.

♦

Talk about Occupy Wall Street. We got our own Occupation here in Iowa. That Woman won’t leave! Who? Michele (falling like a rock) Bachmann is desperately trying to remind everyone that SHE won the straw poll a few weeks ago.

In polling today, Crazy-Eyes is coming in a distant four or five. It’s creepy. She won’t leave. I can feel the state dumbing down by the minute. Somebody pry her cold dead hands from a microphone and send her back to Mina-SOTA.

♦

 

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