Existential Ennui

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Existential Ennui

Tag Archives: American Exceptionalism

The Conversation We Need on War

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by Sherry in Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, History, Military, Veterans, War

Refugees Fleeing ISIS Offensive Pour Into Kurdistan This is not a post I wish to write for a lot of reasons. Mostly it has to do with the fact that I recognize that my opinions here are not in line with the average American and that I have loved ones and friends who will and have disagreed with me in part or in whole. I don’t wish to insult, cause pain, or infuriate those I care about, but important issues do not benefit from pretending they don’t exist.

This all started, or should I say restarted for me with an editorial I read in the NYTimes yesterday which I urge you to read carefully here. It refers to the fact that some veterans really don’t appreciate being thanked for their service and that opens a whole can of worms for me.

Because this promises to be long, and you deserve to understand from whence my opinions germinated, let me go back to the beginning.

War is not something new of course but is as old as human relationships. As we gathered into groups, we inevitably? found war as the way to solve issues between groups. I question the word inevitable since the jury is still out as to whether we are innately prone to solve our problems this way or not. Suffice it to say, we’ve taken the easy way out, the simplistic approach since we began to record our lives as “civilized”.

I am of that generation whose grandfathers were eligible to fight in the “war to end all wars” and our fathers fought in the conflagration known as WWII. Those were both “righteous” wars by all accounts, fought from a necessity we all accepted. My father was a WWII vet and so was my closest uncle. I assumed, without actual knowledge that all of my friends fathers were veterans too. I to this day don’t know which were and which weren’t.

The generation of my father did not talk much of war, it was indeed their overarching psyche not to. My father did not belong to veterans groups for the most part. But the country did take its responsibility to take care of its vets very seriously. The GI Bill followed quickly at the end of the war, and that was accompanied by a social security law that ensured a decent old age. Unions rose dramatically in the years following and with them came salaries that paid a living wage, and pensions to bolster that social security. Veterans once in positions of power made sure their health care needs were met with Medicare in the sixties.

These efforts, directed at least in large part to show our thanks to veterans was shared by most people and embraced. Republicans lagged behind in these efforts, but even they soon were loath to not support them as well. Such happens as the result of righteous wars.

This is what it meant to “support our troops” back then.

I grew up watching war movies, at least until about the age of 15 or so. I had no particular feelings about war other than that they were sometimes necessary and that that men did some scary stuff that I was glad not to do.

Vietnam was “my” war in that I came to adulthood during it. Quickly we came to realize that it had none of the clean lines of demarcation. From the beginning it was mired in questions. It would take years if not decades before we saw it clearly. America had been on the wrong side. Ho Chi Minh was in fact the hero, and America had been propping up a corrupt puppet government that as usual was supported for “doing our bidding.”

We would go on to do similar if less costly (to us) interventions in South America.

I ended up by the time I was nineteen or so supporting draft dodgers and draft card burners and marching on an occasion or two to stop this war. I read books about war, Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, and Aristophanes Lysistrata. Later I read Colonel David Hackworth’s About Face: The Odyssey of An American Warrior.

I was forever changed in my opinions regarding war. I see them today as but temporary fixes that contain the seeds of new wars, and that this posture is endless. I see them as the easy solution when we are not brave enough nor thoughtful enough to do better.

I don’t pretend to be a total pacifist for I recognize that unbridled naked aggression must be met with more than words. But at the same time I’m not sure what the standards should be for determining “just” war. I do believe it should be the last resort rather than the first. I recognize as well that no soldier can hide behind “orders” to justify his/her behavior in a war theatre and thus don’t buy the “war is hell, never question what they did.”

We live in a polarized time where some try to reserve patriotism to themselves. They do this by defining some rather strange things as patriotic. It ends up being words more than behavior in my opinion. Sarah Palin explained to us that people who don’t wear flag pins aren’t patriotic. That is surely an opinion I suppose, but hardly one I want to identify with.

Politicians all wear flag pins, and often spout the words “support our troops”. Plenty of people fly flags as if this is patriotism. If you know me you know I do not relate to any of this.

Borders seem artificial constructs of humans designed to preserve resources mostly. In my view, the future can only result in a remove of such artifices and the institution of policies that favor use of shrinking resources for the benefit of all humanity. World government must inevitably replace nation states.

Thus to me, reliance on archaic terms such as national pride and homeland and so forth serve only to point out our differences rather than seek our commonality. Supporting our troops, more the banner of the politician, ends up being nothing more than a call for a larger army with more armaments. I find it all decidedly unhelpful in a world that shrinks daily and becomes more intricate.

During my war crisis (Vietnam) we knew that most of the boys sent to fight the designated enemy were not there by choice. The draft is no more, at least not now, and so perforce I must admit that all soldiers are soldiers by choice today.  But they are far from being all the same.

Some are there through a genuine desire to “fight for our way of life and to avenge those who kill Americans.” I can appreciate their actual belief, however short-lived it may be, as heartfelt. One can, I suppose, thank them for their belief, however wrong it may be to some of us.

Some are there because life circumstances offers them little in terms of a future. Poor boys and girls find themselves with few options to a better life, and the service has always held out that carrot of education and training as a way out of poverty.

Some were raised in the tradition or not, but feel that all things being equal, this is a good career choice. And that of course is their right.

Others are there because the other option was jail.

I am told, but do not know, that in the midst of battle, soldiers fight not for country or “so that you don’t have to” but solely for each other, as the series Band of Brothers pointed out so well. Such emotions are no doubt noble and right to those who face death.

But since I am not of the persuasion that most wars are necessary, and certainly not these wars of late, I find myself in some quandary about what this thanks is for. Why should I thank the one who deliberately chose to do this thing that I do not agree with? For in the end, wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq arguably have made life here in the US more dangerous rather than less so. Simply the number who hate us has grown exponentially.

There is a movie I believe called What if They Gave a War and Nobody Came? It became a popular slogan during Vietnam. One must ask, what if? It might be that the government would re-institute the draft, but Vietnam proved how powerful a populace can be when it sets its mind against the will of a warmongering government. So is it not legitimate for me to argue that you have no right  to expect my thanks for doing what I deem ultimately doing more harm than good, both to my country and to untold other human beings?

Why should I thank you for doing what you chose to do for your own interests (which I may or may not sympathise with) and which harms what I perceive as legitimate goals of this country?

And who are you to complain of me? The ones who will most vociferously are those who wave flags, wear pins, and speak of supporting our troops. You are also the same ones who support your local congressperson in voting no for food stamps, improvements in the VA and veterans benefits and unemployment benefits. Yet, significant percentages of veterans need food stamps, and they comprise something like twenty-five percent of our homeless. The VA is unable to adequately care for the tens of thousands who return wounded or who like my husband retain injuries not obvious to the casual observer. Yet you do not “support” them in these tangible ways.

So please save your criticism and look in the mirror at your own failings. As the writer of the NYTimes editorial said, you can’t get off the hook for you utter lack of being involved in war by such a simple trite means. Face the fact that unless you or yours was an actual soldier, you haven’t suffered one second for all this killing, and you haven’t thought about it either, other than to issue forth your platitudes.

Some of us bewail this killing, and the victims are not only Americans but Afghanis and Iraqis just for starters. The list gets longer as we have to also bear some responsibility for the killing done by Middle Eastern peoples to each other because of our meddling throughout the region. And we sit in our homes and schools and places of work and dine on steak and watch football, and all the other niceties of life in America while millions suffer for what is being done in our name and in the name of those we support.

We have reaped the whirlwind and now face a group of men and women who have no fear of dying to bring about an ideology they believe in no matter how insane it actually is. And if we don’t come to some equally compelling ideology to counteract it, we will find ourselves ill-equipped to save humanity from itself.

It is clear what the war hawks are selling. It’s what they have sold since the days of Thermopylae.  The question is will we ever see beyond the spear, the catapult, the tank, the bomb and the sniper?

I’m not asking you to agree with me. I’m asking you to dialogue. This is the human conversation that needs to be  held. I am offering no solutions because I don’t have them. But I do believe that we owe it to our children and their children to make the attempt.

All I can do is promise a veteran this: I will honor every dead man and woman killed by war. I will vote for every improvement in VA services and benefits. I will do my best to find real solutions to hunger and housing, and will vote AND PAY TAXES to support public assistance to all in need. I will vote in elections to support peaceful solutions over war. And I honestly truly am deeply sad for your suffering whether it is apparent to all or hidden in the recesses of your mind. I will be a voice for the voiceless. I will seek to help make all boats rise.

We are better than this. We have to be.

 

 

 

 

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Metaphors and Analogies Galore

22 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by Sherry in Brain Vacuuming, Crap I Learned, crap I learned but wish I hadn't, GOP, Humor, Satire, Sunday Editorial, teabaggers

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, GOP insanity, love of country

love_my_country_500 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?

 

 

 

 

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Blago Bites the Bullet Big Time

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Sherry in Corporate America, Economy, Environment, GOP, Health care, Humor, Individual Rights, Satire, What's Up?, Women's issues

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, class warfare, economy, global warming, GOP, women's health, Women's issues

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to the slammer we go.

Blago blah blahed about how he wasn’t guilty/would be back/thanked all the little people/was facing a challenge/none of the above, or something else entirely. Nobody cared.

It’s just nice noting the turning of a page of crap.

I have a reader stuffed with blogs and other newsworthy picks. I can’t begin to read them all every day. I do the best I can, and from time to time, I purge the list of those places that I don’t find I’m using much.

And, as you can expect, I am constantly finding new places that are providing much food for thought. So I thought I’d at least mention some of them, so you can decide whether you might add them to your list of “must reads.”

I do my best to include lots of voices, especially voices I respect, but some I don’t. I have stricken The Blaze, finding the reporting the near non-existent scribblings of high school students at best. Frankly the only thing interesting were the comments and when you understand that these lost souls are unredeemable from a psychological point of view, there seems little point in reading their sad recitation of wacko talking points.

That said, I have added The American Spectator which is deeply conservative. I suspect they are not true believers so much as they are manipulators. I’ve come to realize you don’t read the kool-aid drinkers but the mixers. Along with the National Review, is about all I can stomach of the “intellectual right.”

On a much brighter note, I’ve added the following:  Feministing which lends a more snarky women’s point of view to things. Field Negro, adds another African-American voice, as does SkepticalBrotha and Uppity Negro Network.  Lesbians speak up in Tenured Radical and Social (In)Queery. We try to better understand our Latino citizens with The Wise Latina Club.

If any of you have blogs that you think I should follow please do advise. The broader the network of voices, the more informed we all are. At least so I believe.

¶

As most of you are aware, we are embroiled in this country with a number of GOP faux issues: women’s right to contraceptive care, among them. Juanita Jean directs us to this great site for some good old fun with the perpetrators of Texas’ sonogram law. Women there, are, how shall we put it, not so pleased with their men.  God bless Facebook for providing the space to gather.

¶

We have an appointment at 3:00 p.m at our local market to pick up their daily supply of boxes for my packing adventures. The Contrarian invited me to sup before hand. He recommends “La Mick-Don-aulds” for an offering of surf and turf, otherwise known as a Big Mac and Fish sandwich. I’m so excited, I’m wearing my best hoodie.

¶

The GOP claims that the stimulus has been an unmitigated disaster. Now, I’d be the first to admit that one thing doesn’t necessarily correlate with another, just cause they happen at near the same time. But just sayin’ I think that the GOP doesn’t much like this graph.

But then they probably explain it some other way. Like Alan West, who says that the rise of the stock market over 13,000 is in “anticipation of the GOP victory in November.” (the vertical is the # of job-less unemployment claims)

¶

This is one of the reasons I so dislike flag-waving right wingers who constantly tout the US as some special mecca of perfection unknown throughout the rest of the civilized or not world. These are some damning and sobering numbers. It gives new meaning to the term: “We’re #1”. Please read America the Possible: A Manifesto Pt 1. It’s long, but it’s today’s must read.

¶

The dangers of carbon dioxide. Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is. — Rick Santorum, accepting the Michele Bachmann chair in biochemistry … (This from the Constant Weader) *Chuckle*

¶

Christopher Orlet over at American Spectator has some interesting things to say about the idea that what might help America is if we weren’t so segregated in housing between the rich, middle class and poor. Let’s just say he’s not likin’ the idea much as you can see from the following:

 In general the middle class craves order, stability, security and tranquility. The poor, meanwhile, lead lives that are slovenly chaotic. (this of the “poor” in his own neighborhood and why his middle class neighbors want to escape)

You quickly grow weary of cleaning up your neighbors’ mounds of discarded beer cans, fast food bags, and wrappers. Marijuana is smoked openly on the sidewalks and stoops.

the few responsible middle class parents on our street do not allow their children to associate with their poorer neighbors. I can’t say I blame them. The foul language, the filth, the drug use, the frequent spousal and child abuse, and the unsecured firearms are all excellent reasons why, even on our block, the children are segregated into classes.

Gosh, I don’t know this Orlet dude, but I sure feel sorry for him. Don’t you?

And just cuz you guys are super great!

Whoooooo Are You?

 

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Color Me UnPatriotic

17 Saturday Sep 2011

Posted by Sherry in Editorials, History, Satire, War/Military, World History

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, editiorial, History, Lysistrata, militarism, patriotism, War

If I was to run for public office, I would be accused of being unpatriotic.

No flag pins for me, and certainly no waving of same. I detest “American exceptionalism” claims, and the Fourth, well, it’s just a day for making a picnic meal.

If I ever was left all tingly by the militaristic fervor, it ended when I read Norman Mailer’s, The Naked and the Dead. Nothing noble about foot rot and malaria and dying in dirt and swamps.

Of course the first proclamation to this kind of analysis, is “well, where would we be if somebody didn’t agree to man up and join up and gung-ho it to Hanoi, or Baghdad, or Berlin?”

My response is, “Peace, you damn fool.”

They say I am unrealistic, and I suppose I am.

I listen to Medal of Honor winners (winners?), and I cringe. I hear the same story of valour, risking of life and limb, against the odds, furiously defying logic and common sense to effect usually a good end I guess–the saving of some of ours at the expense of some of theirs.

The cringing part comes from the same explanation for deliberately ignoring man’s first basic instinct–survival. The explanation is always said in a voice that suggests that this should all be self-evident. “Why, because we are brothers, and you don’t leave a brother,” or words to that effect.

I have no doubt that this little gem of military “truth” is drummed into raw recruits from day one, and continues in an unrelenting barrage until the unfortunate soldier hears the first bullet flying in his direction. Nothing matters in all the world, not mothers or husbands, children or dreams; it’s all reduced to sacrifice for the other poor slob in the foxhole no matter what.

I understand why the military does it, but I wonder how it is that grown adults buy it. Do they not see the manipulation? I mean the military can’t have everyone out there putting self first. And guess what? The other side does the same.

And wars are made, practiced, and as I always say, they set the tone, and foundations for the next one down the road. And good men and women die, and lousy men and women get rich, and mostly average folks, cheer our “brave fighting forces” from the sidelines, doing their “patriotic duty.”

And I just refuse to play.

This all came about by catching an article written about the enduring book Catch 22. Heller wrote it and published it in 61, after Korea and before Vietnam had really lit up. It no doubt was the book of the Vietnam protestor. It summed up the futility, the inanity, and the basic dishonesty of war.

I remember well the play by Aristophanes, Lysistrata, written in 411 BCE. The women, in an attempt to stop the wars that were killing their men, go on sexual strike. I remember seeing that play performed at an anti-war demonstration in  ’69 or ’70.

I was a child of the ’50’s and early to mid ’60;s, when we in our infancy never knew when the world might just go kablooey. We literally learned to duck and tuck and cover and wait for mushroom clouds. We lived for a few days with a knot in our stomachs as Kennedy and Khrushchev decided who would blink first, or if it was easier to end it all with a push of the button.

At least the Cold War seemed to my naive eyes, a noble cause. We wanted no part of the dark, cold, and soulless life under Soviet tyranny. But then Vietnam came along with silly domino theories and fighting in rice paddies when who was enemy and who was not, was not very easy.

It was far away, and the people seemed not like us, and not wanting to be like us, and people were dying by droves, and busloads, and it was all awful. And we began to see Heller as having explained it all, and war was well, hell.

And the more we read, and the more we saw, the more we knew he was right. It was all stupid, and it was the every-day kinda kid who was yanked from his bed in Iowa, where the breeze carried the smell of hay and humid soil, and the sounds of crickets and bees, and the views of rabbits and does leading fawns along the skirts of fields.

 He was yanked from life and thrust into death, and told to shoot other people because (fill in the blank with your favorite stupid reason), and he was scared, and dirty, and missed his 67 Ford truck, and his girl, and his mother’s cherry pie.

And he was told to forget all that and offer his not-yet-lived life for the poor kid next to him, who was fearing and missing the same things. And they barely knew each other, and they came back in boxes to be cried over by towns and families and it all just sucked.

At it’s been that way since recorded history.

And the candidates, and the politicians all wave the flag, their stupid pins, and “honor the dead” and demand that our vets (who are so fucked up most of them never are really sane again) get whatever they need, and they feel great about all that, and go on with their miserable sanctimonious lives.

And I’m the one who is unpatriotic.

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In the Name of God

26 Thursday May 2011

Posted by Sherry in 1st Amendment, American History, Bible, Catholicism, Editorials, Founding Fathers, fundamentalism, God, Herman Cain, Literature, religion, social concerns

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, founding fathers, God, Islamophobia, Politics, racism, religion, right wing extremism

The atheists have a powerful argument when they suggest that millions have died in the name of religion. They are right. From the beginning, humans fought over land each claimed was theirs by right, given to them by God.

It’s never ended. Down through all these millenia. We have continued to fight over land and control of populations, all the while upholding our efforts as the “will of God.”

It continues today in a war being waged between Jews, Muslims and Christians. All claim they are doing God’s bidding.

There is always a good argument that mankind would have been better off not listening to the small voice within that urges us to believe that we are destined for more than just a brief sojourn upon this planet only to return to dust.

The truth is, all these wars instituted to protect, promote, or to destroy a religion, are done in the name of religion. There is no objective proof that any of this is called for by God. The deeper you look, the more you see human motivation driving the crusade to install “our” God.

Any fair reading of the Old Testament raises a very obvious question. Isn’t it awfully convenient that God has been on the “side” of the Israelites, thus allowing them to then justify their genocide of whole towns and settlements? How convenient to declare that God has said, “why this land I give to you, so go and subjugate all those who oppose you taking their land.”

Muslims feel utterly justified in controlling the Holy Land, as do Jews, as do Christians. Over time, each has held sway for a time, and been more than willing to kill to retain power. All in the name of God. All in the name of an interpretation, that just might be a bit self-serving.

Religion versus religion, and religion versus secularism erupts in mostly non-violent war in this country today. It has been growing steadily, or resurging I should say. We can be sure that the US expansion into the West and our suppression of indigenous people, either red or brown, was done in some sense in the name of God. We are the City upon the Hill, and as such, God’s new chosen.

This convenient “American Exceptionalism” poisoned with religious righteousness, has justified in the eyes of its perpetrators all kinds of injustice, from genocide to land grabbing, and slavery.

For periods of time, we placed religion in mostly its rightful place–as a facet of each person’s life as they chose or not. Government stayed out of faith, and faith stayed out of government. Religion was a good place to develop ethical, moral, and just responses to issues of the day. It was not the only place however. Government did it’s best to cull the best of the just response and act upon it for the greater good of all, and so that minorities were not walked upon.

I was thinking of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, whatever his personal beliefs about God were, certainly believed that it was a personal issue, not one for the public square. Washington was so loathe to be seen as promoting a particular tradition that he didn’t go to church at all as president.

What must they think of the goings on today? One can only imagine. I suspect they would see it for what it is, shameless religiosity to justify what people want to do anyway. A serious segment of the religion right who intone  “marching in lockstep with Israel” do so only because they believe they are promoting their version of the end times. This of course is not lost on the Israelis, but they accept their friends where they can get them.

Herman, Step-‘n-fetch-it, Cain argues that in his uninformed mind, most Muslims are Sharia law followers, and as president he wouldn’t have time to ferret out the few who aren’t, so don’t blame him for not putting any Muslims in his prospective administration.

A segment of the religious right rejects Mitt Romney only because he is “not the right kind of Christian”. Warren Cole Smith, associate editor of the World, a right-wing magazine, argues:

Placing a Mormon in that pulpit would be a source of pride and a shot of adrenaline for the LDS church. It would serve to normalize the false teachings of Mormonism the world over. It would also provide an opening to Mormon missionaries around the world, who could start every conversation: “Let me tell you about the American president.” To elect a Mormon President is to advance the cause of the Mormon Church.

Non-Christians likely don’t care much about this point one way or the other. But for the Christian, this is a vital issue. One of the strongest warnings Jesus issues is to those who “lead little ones astray.” He said it would be better for that person if a millstone were put around his neck and he were cast into the sea. The validation of the false religion of Mormonism would almost certainly have the effect of leading many astray. Evangelical Christians should have no part of that effort.

This is no different from back in 1960 when a goodly sum of Protestants were pretty darn sure that electing a Catholic to the presidency would be tantamount to installing the pope in the White House, and for some, that was Satan himself.

The UCCB, the official spokesman for the American Catholic Church, has written a letter to Speaker John Boehner, basically condemning the Ryan plan and other GOP plans to gut Medicare as unfairly burdening the least able, while gifting the rich with more riches. Arguments go back and forth within the Catholic world as to whether or not voting for this person or that can be justified under definitions of intrinsic evil.

Exactly what Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers feared, has come to fruition. The public forum is now embroiled in an increasingly vitriolic war of words over whose interpretation of sacred scripture is controlling.

And underlying it all is the ugly raw truth. It still comes down to using God to justify why somebody’s vision of the world should be the one everyone else should be forced to live under. And it’s wrong, period.

End of rant.

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Me Tarzan, You Jane, Nobody Knows What the Chimp Thought

27 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by Sherry in American History, Bush, Essays, Evolution, Foreign Affairs, GOP, Human Biology, Humor, John Boehner, Media, Middle East, Psychology, Satire, Sociology, teabaggers, The Wackos, What's Up?

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, ethics, evolution, Fox News, happiness, History, humanity, John Boehner, Media, morality, Nazism, psychology, religious right wing, Sharron Angle, sociology, teabaggers, the Family

We are a dualist species. We think of most everything in either or, left or right, up or down, in or out. You get the drift.

We are red state, blue state, we are elites, average joes, we are adventurous or skittish. We define binarily, we do it all the time.

Mostly we define us, them. We’ve always done this, in fact those in the know claim they know of no society or people who doesn’t have some concept of themselves versus others.

So, are we to throw up our hands and just give up and in? Are we doomed to any real concept of unity? Are we perpetually at some level of war with anyone not like us?

No. At least so says Erich S. Gruen, in a new book called, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Gruen posits that we make that a choice, it’s not an imperative. Basically, he looks at ancient groups and teases out the nuances of their relationships with others. While superficially, they may appear us-them, in practicality such was not really the case.

While perhaps not totally convincing, Gruen at least points to the fact that we are not in a hopeless adversarial situation,  never to be solved. In a world increasingly divided, this is good news.

***

If you are just dying to engage in some deep philosophical thought, (and who isn’t), then pop on over to read about morality and the good life. Can you achieve happiness without living morally? Is morality a virtue for its own sake? Should it be? Now that you are thoroughly all jiggly with desire to know more, go on, get over to read more! (Whew, now I feel like I’ve done my moral duty in presenting you some uplifting material.)

***

Good grief, the most funny stuff seems to be coming from Iowa these days. You better sit down for this one. It seems Sharron Angle, (remember her?) was in Des Moines, IA, no doubt for some teabaggery thing. She admits she’s thinking of running for President! Hip, hip, Hurray! Now just think. The handlers/caretakers of Bachmann, Palin and Angle gather the ladies together for a good old DEBATE. Can you just imagine the fun? Oh Please God, Oh Please!

***

Foxy Noise should leave well enough alone. Some days ago, that idiot Megan Kelly chastised a guest for claiming that Fox regularly used Nazi references to people they don’t like. Kelly said this was untrue, she watches all the shows and Fox NEVER does such a thing.

Of course this was too much for Jon Stewart, who a couple of days ago ran a montage of Fox “Nazi references, including Beck of course, but also O’Reilly. Well Billo couldn’t resist defending himself. You can read it at Crooks and Liars. Somehow, his calling Huff Po Nazis is not the same as some congressman calling the GOP Nazis. Billo—you are an idiot.

***

It wasn’t that long ago. Just a couple of years. Remember? Our foreign policy was in shambles. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy had angered most of the world. He epitomized the idea of “ugly American” and strutted around like we had no need of allies. Nobody could touch our stuff.

Yes, well it seems that most of the GOP potential presidential candidates continue in the same vein. American Exceptionalism continues to rear its ugly head.

This idea that we are the greatest, the best, the God-ordained perfection in the world is troubling. As we become more and more a global economy, and our political and security needs are necessarily entwined, boasting about our superiority is decidedly a stupid thing to do.

But morons like Palin, DeMint and others seem determined to alienate everyone. What’s worse, it’s being tied to a  religious element that is even more unsavory. A blatantly revisionist history, a call for a spiritual renew all seem aimed at reclaiming our rightful place as God’s favored.

To be so blind and obtuse as to not see how ugly this appears to the rest of the world is tragic. To not realize that every country’s people like to think well of their own homeland is short-sighted in the extreme.

Worse yet, these folks are starting to have a negative and embarrassing influence within other countries as they support groups and leaders who are properly Christian, as they see it, although they may be acting in decidedly unChristian ways.

It’s a long article at AlterNet, but well worth your read. (The Family raises its ugly head again.)

***

I admit to a good deal of ignorance. I’m totally ignorant why Tunisia is up in arms. Ditto for Egypt. I think I’m supposed to be for the Tunisian uprising, but not so about the Egyptian. Anybody want to explain it in a nutshell? I’m not so much a follower of international news. My bad.

***

No one mentioned it. But I saw it. I figured John (Eye’s the SPEAKER!) Boehner was most aware that he was on camera during the SOTU. And it put him in a conundrum of sorts. I mean President Obama kept saying things that were universally good, and it would not look good to not applaud.

So John seemed, a good deal of the time, trapped into half-hearted clapping that he really didn’t want to do, but thought would look bad if he didn’t. Then there were other times that his face looked for all the world like he’d been chewing a lemon. How to keep a calm face when he desperately wanted to yell in the best GOP wacko form: “YOU LIE.”

I thought it was funny at least.

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Well, Now that That’s Over With!

03 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by Sherry in Constitution, Essays, GOP, Humor, Lobbyists, Satire, teabaggers, Uncategorized, What's Up?

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

American Exceptionalism, Arkansas, China, Constitution, GOP, Michael Steele, teabuggers, wingnuts

If you woke up similar to this on New Year’s Day, then presumably you’re pretty glad it’s over with too!

So it’s on to the January blahs, or as it’s commonly known in Iowa, freakin’ cold, freakin’ snow, and freakin’ bleak. It’s something you learn to live through, other options being less enticing.

So, we made it to the big city and done our shopping. We operate like a finely tuned team. We hit the first store where we buy our meat. No packaged stuff, just a long case with meat and a slew of butchers behind the counter to cut and wrap.

Then it’s drop me off at the mega supermarket, while the Contrarian heads off to Wal-Mart for dog and cat food, as sundry clothing items and so forth. Then he returns to locate me. As it turned out today, I had just checked out with a teeming cart load when he arrived, so we were in total synch.

The lane is partly blown in so we travel via the field. Can you say washboard? The Contrarian went out Friday when it was still slushy and created a trail that has since iced down. Now it’s like getting the tires in groove and lettin’ her rip, no steering required. It’s a hair-raising event.

***

The most exciting news so far is that the GOPers are apparently about to unseat Mr. Steele as chairman of their party. Figuring they have “proved we are down with Negroes” one almost expects them to shout Arriba! and search for a token Latino or LINO, as they are called, to shore up that ethnic flavor. But as far as we know, no brown Beemers are in the running. No Cabin GOPers either.  Muslims are still too hot to handle, and women have been done (Sarah should suffice for a good twenty years). The Good Old P*ckers can be expected to stay fully in control.

***

Hey, don’t blame me. I swore off meanness for nearly two weeks. I’m raring to go!

***

It’s being reported that 5000 birds dropped out the skies of Arkansas, dead as doornails. Unlike doornails, they had once presumably been alive. Now we hear that 100,000 fish (did they really count them all?) have died in some waterway there. Reports of a Moses like figure and a guy with a lots of eye makeup named Pharoah, arguing on the Capital steps, are wildly exaggerated. We got the dead stuff report from Mock, Paper, Scissors, the rest  we dreamed up.

***

We are a nation of noodles. The news is full of instances in which teabugger candidates who were elected have fired lobbyists as their chiefs-of-staff. Some wacko state elected as their representative a dude who was illegally placed in the Justice department by Rove and was fired. He is now scheduled to sit on the Judiciary committee. West, the blowheart from Florida who claimed he had a higher security clearance than Obama, but was forced to resign his commission in the armed services, now claims that Obama is no leader because he sneaks into Afghanistan under dark of night in secrecy. This is no “leadership” as Wacko West sees it.

We are getting what we voted for aren’t we?

***

I’d like more than anything than to link up to great stories about the insanity of all these wingnuts, and do it without becoming angry, and despondent, and without hope, and resigned, and pissed off. I’d like that. I always say I’m going to remain above it all, just looking down and reporting the landscape, from up here in the trees, or clouds. But I don’t. Tell me how if you know. My blood pressure will sure thank you.

***

I hear the GOPers in the House plan to start the festivities off with reading the Constitution from front to back. This is a good beginning. It will undoubtedly be their first experience with the document. They might find that it is printed in one continuous piece of paper, and that the amendments are not “optional”.

***

I wonder who the GOP will put down once they have exhausted all the minorities on the planet. I mean after the Mauri and the Magyars. When they have hated and vilified and blamed all their woes on everyone else, who will they turn to them?

***

I’m wondering if parents who have kids about to enter college and suggesting they learn Chinese or major in Asian studies. It seems prudent to me. I think American “exceptionalism” has reached it nadir, nobody overseas buys it much, and China seems poised to take the helm, with India not far behind. Both have invested in the future. We are still romanticizing the past and wanting a return to the “good old days” when everybody was happy (meaning white men felt a lot more secure and in charge).

***

Related Articles
  • Issa Fine Tunes His Investigation Target Net (themoderatevoice.com)
  • 100,000 Dead Fish Wash Ashore in Arkansas: Is the End Near? (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)

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