t remains to be seen if all the emotional exhortation of the wingnut GOP will take hold of the voters in November to "sweep out" the Democrats who actually did what they promised to do in this bitterly fought version of health care reform -- even if the end product is far from perfect or revolutionary legislation.
24 hours a day of Fox News, hours and hours of Hate-Wing radio and a mainstream media that has given an inordinate amount of coverage to the tiny Tea-Party movement somehow failed to prevent the Democratic Party from acting like statesmen for once.
I commend them for their courage; especially House members who will all be subject to the obscene behavior of the noisy, "greasy wheels" of easy media celebrity.
Keith Olbermann's signature turns of phrase will never be heard above the din of the numerous doomsayers at Fox News, but we who are able to understand nuance, wit and sarcasm, truly appreciate his authentic outrage, cleverly conveyed to those of us who see a political world of increasing unreality and a blind march by the easily manipulated towards their own frightening Orwellian dystopia.
I've been pulling my hair out (whatever little I have left) trying to understand the dynamics of the "health care reform" fiasco.
Our national soap opera has brought out the worst in many people over an issue that one would think the vast majority of people - anyone in fact who has lived with the insanity and inhumanity of the insurance corporations. Yet something bigger came into play. Something I simply couldn't understand.
But today, it began to make sense. Take away all the rhetoric and bombast, and what do you have?
You have a political victory by one party over another in an area that affects virtually every American in his or her life. Health Care is needed universally, even if it isn't universally available even yet in this country.
But the Democrats have won a major social battle that will be seen as a landmark in American history.
And this, THIS, is what has driven the Republicans, hate radio, Fox News, wingnuts and others in the madcap political arena to lose all sense of perspective and morality in this battle.
But Barack Obama has won!. This black President has changed America in a significant and permanent way.
So more than anything else, as correct-thinking people in this country celebrate, be aware that this is thing that sticks in the craw of so many people who harbor so much hatred for America and Americans on this great and wonderful day.
These days, our feckless media is all abuzz with talk of the foreign stock market collapse, the burst of the housing “bubble”, the mortgage crisis and the dreaded recession. But fear not America. Uncle George and his rubber-stamp Congress have come together to announce with great fanfare a "stimulus package" to save our tottering economy.
The causes of our current crisis are nothing new to this country. First is the 30-year obsession by Republicans to the sacrosanct concept of free-trade and deregulation that has created a culture of greed and corruption in our corporate boardrooms. This has been done because the federal agencies that should be protecting the health and welfare of our citizens have gradually been stripped of their power or politicized and gutted.
In the past few years, banks and mortgage institutions have led the way with their irresponsible lending practices, only to find themselves burdened by losses in the billions of dollars. As a consequence, some of these corporations have had to go hat-in-hand to overseas sources to bail them out.
But perhaps an even more important, though seldom-mentioned factor in our current economic mess is the cost of the War in Iraq. Through fiscal year 2007, this trumped up and unjustified war has cost U.S. taxpayers $456,100,000,000, or nearly a half trillion dollars. Remember, this was the war that was going to “pay for itself” according to its architects.
To break this down to numbers we can understand, here are some other ways of looking at this enormous sum:
$4,100 for every American household
$1,500 for every American
$3,400 for every taxpayer
$11 million per hour
$275 million per day
This amount doesn't even include the untold amount of money that has gone--and will go--into immediate and long-term medical and psychological care for military personnel affected by their involvement in the war. Nor does it include amounts for fiscal year 2008 and beyond; estimated at $150-200 billion per year for the foreseeable future. In fact, one of the current Republican frontrunners, John McCain, recently stated that "even if the United States were in Iraq for 100 years, it would be alright with me".
Remember, too, that this amount only includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is only a small part of the overall Department of Defense budget, which this year alone is $481.4 billion. One has to question why nearly 20 years after the Cold War ended, the majority of the Defense budget is still going to non-war spending. But that is another issue entirely.
What is appalling to me is that we Americans--who have been indoctrinated by the Republican Party since at least 1964 that Democrats are the "tax and spend" party--continue to swallow this line when the largest tax increases in history were instituted by GOP patron saint Ronald Reagan in the '80's and George W Bush the last seven years.
Now, our clueless leader and the Democratic and Republican sheep in Congress are falling all over each other trying to jump-start an economy that has been badly mismanaged--or should I say unmanaged--by this "CEO Administration". The President and Congress actually appear to believe the lies they're telling us that $600 will induce each of us taxpayers to go out and buy something--to buy anything.
I'm not sure if the President or Congress has discovered this fact yet, but since virtually all regulatory restraint was taken off the banking and credit card industry, the average credit card user is paying as much as 36% interest per year. That means adding more than 1/3 of the principal to the debt every single year.
Many economists predict that this vast mountain of debt will emerge as the next crisis in our looming recession. I wonder how many families will opt to purchase yet another consumer item during this time when their credit card debts are increasing and average incomes in real terms haven’t increased since the year 2000.
I truly fear that we’re being led down the path to our own destruction, and like lambs to slaughter, we don't even notice. Fear-mongering by this Administration continues to eat away at our Constitution in the name of "homeland security" to the point where we as a nation can’t seem to think critically any longer.
Besides critical thinking, common sense also seems to have disappeared from the plucky American attitude we grew up with. Perhaps 9-11 so traumatized the national psyche that we've yet to awaken to the real dangers that exist right here at home by people we’re supposed to trust.
I am hoping that this country isn't in its last days, because if things continue the way they’re going today, America really is going to be a much different place in the coming years.
And I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t want to live here then.
In a week that includes the worst mass shooting in American history by a lone, very disturbed gunman, once again we ask ourselves how this could have happened.
At the very same time, hundreds of people a week are being killed in Iraq as a result of a lone disturbed President, who typifies the insanity of a society that speaks of love, tolerance, compassion and peace while officially committing acts of violence and hatred towards people we once claimed to "shine the light of democracy" upon.
A first reading into the mind of Cho Seung-Hui indicates that he was likely sexually abused as a child. This all-too-secret crime against so many children throughout the world generally causes its victims to turn their rage inward destroying their lives in an atmosphere of desperate silence. When it's directed outwards...well, we've seen what can happen.
I am currently reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer, about the history of polygamy in Mormonism. Today, polygamy is officially banned in the Church of Latter Day Saints, and was done so in the late 19th century in order for the State of Utah to co-exist peacefully with the rest of the United States.
Still, the Prophet and founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, is described in the book as mostly a charismatic charlatan who--like so many "cult" leaders--soon believed his own "publicity" and when he tired of one wife, it was "revealed" to him that he could and should take as many as he wished.
So when the official Church banned this sacred tenet of the faith, those who believed in the original revelations of Smith felt justified and even commanded to practice plural marriage.
Today, there are many polygamous adherents of Smith's original Church. While many of these LDS fundamentalists are undoubtedly good and honorable people, the concept of personal revelation as espoused by Smith is the perfect prerequisite for attractive, narcissistic personalities to exploit those around them.
"Under the Banner of Heaven" describes many examples of these kinds of men who have created their own little fiefdoms throughout the world. And invariably, these men have combined a total subjugation of women with an abuse of daughters that include incest and marriage to friends and relatives at ages as young as fourteen, where they would be just one of a virtually unlimited number of wives.
This abuse is as destructive to these girls as any kind of physical, sexual or emotional abuse committed outside of these "communities". But since the vast majority of polygamous Mormon wives are taught from infancy that they are little more than worthless chattel--except as a vessel for begetting Mormon children--they suffer the death of any sense of individuality or spirit. And those with a stubborn attachment to a sense of self have actually be sent to mental institutions for displaying a serious independent streak.
I don't know. After I stopped believing in evil around my second year of college--which was approximately the time I stopped believing that religion was beneficial to anyone--I slowly evolved into a scientific materialist. I was proud of my ability to see past the hypocritical religious crap that permeates our society. This was three decades ago and I've softened my determined atheism a bit.
Nothing in my life or dreams has made me believe in any reality other than this one. But I haven't stopped seeking one...just one moment of a sense of "the other".
I've studied the annals of psychedelia and Shamanism and New Age beliefs, as well as Buddhism, and the intellectual rationalist in me can't help but build rationalist arguments for all the phenomena described, else, I conclude, trying to give myself over to the possibilities of extra-realistic dimensions puts me in the same mindset as the Lafferty brothers described in the book, who became so convinced of their conversations with God that they felt both commanded and justified to slash and kill the wife of a brother of theirs, then calmly slit the throat of her baby.
With this and Cho's actions as well as the action of our President, Vice President and so many others in the world, how can I not believe in evil?
But alas, even these kinds of actions can be reasonably understood as the cumulative effects of lifetimes of mixed messages, misunderstood teachings, abuse, lack of real love and millions of other psychic events that create who we are.
So, who the hell do we blame?
No one and everyone. The same incredibly complex organ that creates breathtakingly beautiful works of art and literature; that can display the most selfless actions of bravery and heroism; that can produce such an intense love for others; can also wield death and destroy lives without a second thought and without a moment's regret.
If karmic evolution is the 1st law of metaphysics, that would offer some sense of gnosis for what we witness every single day.
In the meantime, we can only acknowledge the truth of Shakespeare's observation (as reworked for the musical "Hair"):
What a piece of work is man How noble in reason How infinite in faculties In form and moving How express and admirable In action how like an angel In apprehension how like a god The beauty of the world The paragon of animals
I have of late But wherefore I know not Lost all my mirth This goodly frame The earth Seems to me a sterile promontory This most excellent canopy The air-- look you! This brave o'erhanging firmament This majestical roof Fretted with golden fire Why it appears no other thing to me Than a foul and pestilent congregation Of vapors
Last week, Gibson--the Fox News commentator who last year courageously alerted us to the War on Christmas--stunned America once again with a new threat to those of us who are deeply concerned about maintaining white supremacy...I mean, a white majority in our nation.
Here are the shocking statistics in his own words:
"...half the kids under 5 years old in this country are minorities. By far, the greatest number are Hispanic. Know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority population is Hispanic. To put it bluntly: We need more babies."
I know it's not PC to say this, but I don't think our forefathers decimated the Native American population just so that their brown relatives from south of the border could later overrun our nation with their poor, their tired and their fast-breeding masses.
After all, white America massacred thousands of Mexicans in the 19th century just to create the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. If that hadn't happened, where would the good white people of our great land relocate to in their desire to seek the perfect climate...and the perfect tan.
It's good to know that there are still heroes in America. John Gibson, a man who oozes wholesome whiteness from every pore and hair follicle, will undoubtedly be vilified by traitorous liberals and unchristian race-mixers who have given up the dream of creating a color-free America (except, of course, for those lovely tans). But for the rest of us, I will stay glued to my Fox News Channel, where The Truth is always served red, white and blue.
In an article from the London Sunday Times--a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper--there is an interview with Hugo Chavez' ex-mistress. It is called "My lover, the great dictator".
This sensational interview conveniently comes just days after Chavez and Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, faced down the European Union.
While the word dictator has been bandied about rather loosely by our own Bush Administration in regards to Mr. Chavez, it is interesting to note that whenever Chavez is written about, it seems to be impossible to write objectively about the man. For instance, this is the first paragraph of this article.
"The ex-mistress of Venezuela’s leader, darling of Britain’s left, predicts an autocratic disaster, reports Tony Allen-Mills"
Using the phrase "darling of Britain's left" is apparentliy supposed to marginalize Chavez, but I think there are many more people behind Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution than just a few fringe lefties.
As for this woman's predicted dictatorship in Venezuela, let's examine political philosophies a bit.
Indoctrinated in this country to be great believers in democracy as a the best of all political systems, we have witnessed in the last six years the blatant subversion of what is left of OUR democracy with a bought and intimidated media, corrupt and just-plain-wacked politicians and worst-of-all, a manipulated and dull-witted electorate more upset by gays and illegal immigrants than the ruthless redistribution of wealth upward by Republicans and their ilk.
As the United States spirals closer to the kind of banana republic that has generally defined Central and South American nations, I find it a hopeful sign that the endemic poverty of this area is being addressed--in Venezuela at least--by this so-called "dictator".
Few South American elections can be called fair in that region's long history. Certainly the doubts that I now harbor over the democratic process can be easily understood in South American terms. Chavez understands as well as anyone that the direction of a nation can be turned 180 degrees in one election.
For my part, I'm willing to see how the majority of the people fare under Chavez before condemning his mission to raise his people up from a poverty that has never abated regardless of who was elected in the past.
If I can listen every single day to apologists for the Bush Administration downplay and rationalize the evils done by this Administration, then I don't mind in the least being called an apologist for this kind of "benevolent dictator".
I began to understand that 'America' in reality belonged to the whole world and not just to Americans. The idea of America had already been invented by the philosophers, the vagabonds, the dispersed of this earth, long before the Spanish ships got there.
Those whom we call Americans have only rented it for a time. If they behave badly, we can discover another 'America'. The contract can be canceled at any time.
As the United States spirals closer to the kind of banana republic that has generally defined Central and South American nations, I find it a hopeful sign that the endemic poverty of this area is being addressed--in Venezuela at least--by this so-called "dictator".
Few South American elections can be called fair in that region's long history. Certainly the doubts that I now harbor over the democratic process can be easily understood in South American terms. Chavez understands as well as anyone that the direction of a nation can be turned 180 degrees in one election.
For my part, I'm willing to see how the majority of the people fare under Chavez before condemning his mission to raise his people up from a poverty that has never abated regardless of who was elected in the past.
If I can listen every single day to apologists for the Bush Administration downplay and rationalize the evils done by this Administration, then I don't mind in the least being called an apologist for this kind of "benevolent dictator".