The Enemy Within

The political atmosphere in this country has now become so toxic that it is practically impossible to have a genuine conversation that results in a productive exchange of ideas. We have all become convinced that the other side is in league with the devil. The conversation is not about philosophical ideas of leadership, but about the Armageddon that awaits should the other side either remain in power or regain power. There is no political middle ground anymore. The President is a fairly moderate left leaning politician. What has that gotten him? The right thinks he's an African Manchurian candidate, anti-Christ. The left thinks he's a sell out with no backbone. That is what happens to you in today's climate if you attempt to walk down the middle of the road. 

The real problem with this open animosity is that it allows the actual issues of the day to be pushed to the side in an all out attempt to win. You see the idea that the end of the world is nigh becomes the driving force behind all political action. Politicians use the most extreme language to describe the opposition in order to evoke a visceral reaction from their followers. The actual policies are not the important thing, the most important thing that voters take away from these demagogues is that if the opposition wins, their lives as they know it will be over. I could get into more complicated explanations about the backlash of white males and the similarities to the strategies employed by Nixon in '68 and even more forcefully in '72, but there really is no need. Both parties are guilty of overuse of hyperbole in describing the repercussions to America should their opponents be victorious in the next election. 

Lost in all the noise is the actual policy. Which politician or political party is simply talking about what would be the most beneficial to the people of America? The political parties are too busy bashing each other over the head to seemingly pay much attention to that. The Good of the people (which has long since taken a back seat to the greed and ambition of politicians), seems to be absolutely missing from our political discussion these days. The sad thing is that the followers of both parties have allowed this to happen. We have all played a part in turning politics into just the next "thing" that we have to win. "Our side won, hurray"!, who cares whether it will actually help "We the People". Republicans were disappointed by George Bush, so what, at least he won 2 elections and God knows it would have been the end of the world  if Al Gore had won. Those on the left are disappointed in Obama, but so what, at least we won and God knows it would have been the end of the world if John McCain had won.

The rhetoric and the hyperbole and the scare tactics have come to define political thought in our time. We no longer live in constant fear of nuclear annihilation, but apparently we have replaced that boogey monster with a new one called the OPPOSITION PARTY. It works for politicians because it allows them to whip their supporters into a frenzy without ever addressing any real issues. TV friendly soundbites are so much easier to come up with than actual policies and ideas to address the many real problems that we face. The part that's harder to understand is how WE the PEOPLE have allowed ourselves to become the standard bearers of and town criers for this sideshow. Perhaps it is just the fact that we need a mortal enemy in order to justify our own existence. I'm not sure what the answer is. I've certainly been guilty of it myself. But when I see and hear the noise that is generated by the media and the nonsense that is spewing forth from the mouths of our elected leaders, I just have to wonder if there's any road back from this. Is this it? Is this what our republic has come to? I think the quote "We have met the enemy and he is us" sums up my feelings.

You'll Believe a Man Can Fly!

"You'll believe a man can fly", that's how the advertising campaign went for the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve. After seeing the movie, I did damn near believed it myself, but I knew that it was just special effects. However, while I was watching the movie, I absolutely believed that Christopher Reeve could fly. That is because of what we call the willing suspension of disbelief. It makes movies, plays, books, etc., really any work of fiction more exciting. If we, as the audience willingly suspend our disbelief then we can go along on the journey of fancy being presented. Most works of fiction have plot holes big enough to drive a truck through and yet we allow them without too many questions because it makes the experience more entertaining. In every horror movie, the cast always splits up, instead of staying together. We all know that they would stand a better chance of surviving if they stayed together, but the characters seem to be oblivious to that fact. We, as the audience play along, because the experience wouldn't be as much fun if the characters acted like their real life counterparts would.

My co-conspirator here at Random Thoughts wrote a wonderful piece about the willingness of the American people to buy into lies and propaganda.  My thoughts are very similar, but I think that the American people are more like that audience at the horror movies. They know what the outcome is going to be and yet they still watch the whole movie. They still choose (with their dollars) to go and see something that is filled with inconsistencies and usually extremely predictable. I think Mike Myers (of Halloween fame, not the Canadian comedian) was killed at the end of every one of his movies and yet there he always was, two years later, once again reeking havoc on another unsuspecting group of individuals. The same goes for Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th), or Freddie Kruger (Nightmare on Elm Street). The audiences always came back though. 

We are now on the verge of a mid term election that could (and most likely will) return the Republicans to power in the House and Senate. How, you ask, could people who just two years ago resoundingly rejected the Republican agenda, once again think that the GOP is the answer to their problems? It's easy you see, they are engaged in the same type of mental gymnastics that are required to watch and enjoy a movie that makes no logical sense and is entirely predictable. We as a nation are now involved in a willing suspension of disbelief on a massive scale. The claims made by the Republicans and their supporters are entirely predictable. We all know what it leads to and how that story ends and yet it seems we are all going to be a party to a return engagement. We are going to sit down and pay our money and watch this show run it's course one more time. Lowering taxes on the rich will make eventually benefit everyone...loosening regulations on the banks will help to make money more accessible to everyone...Closing our borders will make us a stronger nation...Health care isn't so broke that a little tort reform won't make everything better...etc, etc, etc. 

We've heard it all before. There is nothing new on the table and yet we, as a nation are willing to suspend our disbelief in order to see the show play out once again. There is a definition of insanity which is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. I don't believe that we fall under into that category, because deep down, I honestly believe that people know what the end result is going to be, they just don't care. We are willing to suspend our disbelief one more time because this show, the Republican Side Show, is just more fun than the Democratic one. The Republicans will tell you that everyone can be rich, if you just let them back into power. The Republicans will tell you that everyone will be happy, if you just let them back into power. The Democrats on the other hand are always trying to keep everyone grounded in reality. Well, as the people are about to tell them, reality is no fun. Where's the fun in hard work and sacrifice? Where's the fun in continued economic stagnation? Where's the fun in increased taxes?

So as November rolls around and unemployment stays high and disenchantment with the Obama administration continues to grow, get ready for a new horror movie that's going to be opening at a city hall and a state capitol and a Congressional office near you. Our suspension of disbelief will be in full effect as we sit down to enjoy, Halloween 2010: the Revenge of the Republicans. The problem is that we've already seen how this one ends.

Cross posted at Mad Mike's America.

Understanding What’s Really Wrong with Our Country and Our World

These days, I’ve often heard it said that the problem with too many Americans who vote against their own interests is their stupidity, or their lack of formal education, or their reliance on corporate-engineered news sources.

How else can you explain the popularity of someone as intellectually counterfeit and ethically suspect as Glenn Beck in America?

The problem with those explanations is that there are plenty of constant counter examples that don’t hold out. There are plenty of people that might be considered to be “dumb as posts,” who still vote rationally in line with their own interests and the interests of the country as a whole in mind. I’m talking about some of the poor people in my old South Bronx neighborhood, many of whom never made it past 9th grade, yet still understand the importance of labor unions and the need for regulation in big business no matter what they read in the New York Post every single day on their train ride to work. Most of these folks can’t even explain the structure of our government or its history despite being native born Americans, yet they can still spot opportunistic bullshit when they hear it:

These so-called “stupid” uneducated people still somehow knew that anything coming from the Right against Healthcare Reform was going to be the kind of lying you only see go down when corporate profits are at stake.

Another problem with the explanations of ignorance, or misinformation is that the truth and the facts are being promoted constantly in the media despite what my fellow Liberals charge: Someone who watches Fox “News” exclusively still walks around the same world as everyone else and invariably sees other headlines they have to actively dismiss. The devoted Fox “News” watcher has to walk the Earth in a constant state of denial, preemptively disbelieving anything that doesn’t match up with Murdoch’s brand of propaganda and wait for new Fox “factoids” to counter reality when they get home and can watch Hannity or whomever. There were for example far more years (decades in fact) of information on the dangers of global climate change, pollution, the importance of conservation, the dangers of continued and future oil dependence, than there have been of the relatively recent Right wing and corporate-sponsored anti-Environment movement propaganda. So just how did such obvious lies catch up to and overtake the truth for many in America?
-The way it happened was this: Lies, -the kind of lies that are invented to muddy facts and question truths inconvenient to the powerful, the Rich, the Establishment were created to be appealing to the believer. That’s the only way they could work. These lies gave the listener something in return for “buying in.”

“You can still lose weight and eat everything you want”
is a statement I see every night on TV infomercials in some form or another. This American desire, particularly the willingness of our desperate fat citizens to do absolutely anything in the world to lose weight (except eating right and exercising apparently) is the core of our problem, and it is what is behind the Tea Baggers today, and it is what was behind the Reagan revolution of 1980.

Tea Baggers believe that they can groundlessly oppose the Obama administration with criticisms they should have leveled at its predecessors (Spending, irresponsible economic governance, government intrusion, weak national security) because it makes them feel okay about claiming they’ve somehow lost their country now that a Black man is president.
Reagan’s supporters were told America could spend its way to prosperity; that we could deregulate big business and it would never create adverse consequences, -ever, because it allowed us to finally say what we felt was a long overdue “fuck you” to the poor. We believed it because it made us feel good. We believed it because it was allowing us to eat all we wanted, without any ill effects… that was the promise and that was the lie.

So the problem with America my friends, aside from our new impatience with any administration or any policy that takes more than six months to register a measurable improvement is this infantile desire to be lied to in place of an ugly truth, and the willingness to trade our safety and our future for just the right fantasy. Too many of us will buy into any lie, as long as the reality it promises let’s us get away with something. You can’t discuss policy with people who want to be lied to. You can’t have a conversation with someone who is lying about how they really feel, unless your goal is to waste your time. I don’t argue with Tea Baggers.

And that’s where we’re at today, Friday September 10, 2010, almost ten long years to the day after a homicidal fundamentalist asshole decided to make a point to my government with facile destructive attacks that only showed just how easy it is to murder people in an open society and an open nation and little else. The American Republic and its Constitution almost didn’t survive 9/11 and ten years later, too many of us are still taking the bait, too eager to hear lies that give us something in return for our credulity, like believing the lie that only allowing our government to operate secretly will keep us safe… or that the actions of the few can conveniently condemn all. -But that last bit goes for all of us, -the real “all of us” everywhere on the globe, whether we’re burning books, killing aid workers, denying people’s rights, or waging unending wars supported by some fake, self-inflicted distance from reality.

A lie is a kind of trade between the speaker and the listener.
We must always ask ourselves what someone is getting for our belief, and if it’s actually worth what we are getting in return.
-SJ

UPDATED 9/16/2010:
Jack Jodell has written an excellently researched rundown of lies that should not go uncontested or unremembered going into the fall.

…And the Republic for Which It Stands.

I am living with a very terrible, nagging feeling these last months. We are in a state of division these days so acute that Republicans and Conservatives cavalierly propose secession and cite states' rights, as if Jefferson Davis were still walking the earth and the Civil War had been but a prelude, and not settled history. These Republicans were the same people who accused the softest critics of the Bush administration of treason in the post 9/11 twilight of the 00s.

As I hear poll after poll indicating that Republicans and the Right likely stand to gain seats, if not a functioning majority in the House, I ask myself:
“Who are these excited fools, and how exactly did they apply their amnesia so selectively?”
“Doesn’t the future of a country matter more to these “patriots” than their declared party’s influence?”

And I am dealing with other terrible, nagging feelings. Among them the suspicion that we may no longer lack the maturity as a nation of citizens to either wait for policies to take effect, or listen to reason of any kind. Emotion and fear consistently trump the facts; and our beliefs, no matter how archaic and unenlightened, drown out news and information. We won’t consider any single simple thing unless it comes to us from someone we want to hear it from at the podium. This is one of the things that is making it so difficult for the population to even agree on a common, concrete, empirical reality.

Not everything is a matter of opinion or belief, and saying so is an act of puerile desperation. But the desperate are outlasting the sane in America today. Voters are insisting on acting like children, citing their refusal of inconvenient facts as philosophical strength and ideological resolve.

The “news,” as it is today, it not helping. The global and national media apparatus is in fact providing the most effective means of disseminating lies, legitimizing contrived inaccuracies and promoting the distractions of the Establishment.

Months ago, I made a list of Republican Senators from around the country and called and emailed each and every one of them about Healthcare reform (some wouldn’t let me email if I didn’t place a zip within their state, so it took some doing.) I started with John Boehner’s office. My feeling was that I had to say something to contradict the lie they kept repeating over and over again, -that the overwhelming percentage of Americans did not want health care reform. I did not want to be unheard by these spectacular liars even if my communications were ticks in the seas of their blind supporters’ screams and yells at town halls.
I asked many writers online to do the same: -not that they call Democrats, but that they specifically call the “opposition” and make reality a thing that much more obvious to disavow. I suspect no one else did this, because I know how long it took me: 3 days.

All I hear is how demoralized, disappointed and unenthusiastic voters are now that the Obama administration has shown it can only pass part of a healthcare reform package, part of a financial reform bill.

Well maybe Obama could have cured cancer in the last year if every single person who ever complained about it called all of their representatives.

Do not forget that "part" of a lazy public is sitting back and saying “Well, I voted” and doing little else since the White House changed hands.

And Now...

...Now those masses who forever want someone to make them feel comfortable, those familiar millions who are always clamoring for some leader to tell them they can have everything they want if they only shut up, if they only listen, if they only follow like supplicants in the presence of God are excited again. The American Right’s goal is enchantment, belief, obedience, uniformity, a homogeneity all in the service of allowing the rich to get richer, and ensure the poor remain raw material for whatever purposes the ruling class see fit.
How could Democrats, Progressives, the Unions, the working class, the poor or the Left, ever have hoped to keep its resolve in the face of that kind of stalwart, idiotic devotion presented as a political movement?
Honestly, I figured it would last longer than a year and a half, but from what I’m reading online, I was dead wrong.

I was as naïve as the armies of suckers who lined up to hear a comedian “restore honor” this past weekend in the nation's capitol.

Somebody save this country from its stupider, short-sighted impulses.
Somebody wake it before this idiotic nightmare runs its toxic course.
-SJ

Nice Try.

I recycled a photo I created for the last piece I wrote on Glenn Beck, because that’s just how much time and attention this clown deserves this morning.

The most dishonorable and criminal thing that Conservatives, Republicans and all the hordes of Establishment propping shills in the media; like the whole of the Fox News Network, Newsmax and other purveyors of right wing fantasy, do is lie. The Right lies so brazenly and openly about their motives and their intentions and they do it with such sustained dedication, that the truth is often obscured by the simple exhaustion of journalists tired of reminding people of the facts.

Glenn Beck wants you to accept his excuse that his event today is just a coincidence in scheduling, but unless you are the kind of fucking fool who actually watches his cable show with the rapt attention more appropriate for actual news, -you can see this is a lie.

Can I or anyone read Beck’s mind and prove otherwise?
Of course not.

But childishly citing the absence of telepathy as the reason to accept this jackass’s excuse that he is trying to organize a “take back” of the Civil rights movement while unknowingly doing it on the anniversary of one of the most important dates in American history and Civil rights history, -is just more lying by Beck, Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and their PR teams.

The result and consequence of this rally is the same, -a desperate attempt at thinning and obscuring an important date in civil rights history with bullshit because there is an African American in the White House.

“Nice try, asshole.”

While Glenn Beck may have succeeded in fulfilling the wishes of Americans so scared to think for themselves that they’ll watch some unqualified jerkoff like him scribble Conservative paranoia on a black board, the vast majority of the world and Americans remain keenly aware that Glenn Beck’s time on TV, his public appearances, his “books” are all just one big publicity stunt. Like Sarah Palin, no paid hypocrisy, or promise of exposure is too immoral or dishonorable to turn down for Beck. …Otherwise why would Beck try to glom off of Dr. King’s legacy?

What I’ll do today, is what I do with all of the contemporary Right’s recent sad attempts at intellectual legitimacy, and political legacy: I’ll ignore it, just as I ignore the cheesy car dealership ads that pop up on Lincoln’s birthday every year.
-SJ

Can't We All Just Get Along?

In one word, no. The human condition seems to be predicated on conflict. A few years ago I started this blog to write about whatever came to my mind. It was mostly insignificant stuff. The last presidential election transformed this blog into a political forum for SJ and I to express our thoughts. Recently I have found it more and more difficult to write about political topics. Oh, I slip up every now and then, but I have tried to stay away from strictly political issues. I do realize that no matter what is said on this blog, it won't please all of the people, all of the time. So, just for shits and giggles, here are some random thoughts that have crossed my mind recently.

Abortion: I am pro-choice. However, we need much better sex education and family planning in order to  try and limit the number of abortions that are performed.

Guns: The right to bear arms is guaranteed in the Constitution (even though I think the rationale in that document no longer holds much water), so therefore I support it. I do not believe that it is an absolute right and I see no reason at all for the general public to have access to automatic weapons.

Health Care: It should be a right. All citizens should have the right to, at the very least, a basic level of health care. And emergency room care is not nearly enough. 

Immigration: We should allow people to work toward citizenship if that is what they desire. Our country is made better by diversity, not worse. 

Gay Marriage: Marriage, according to the Supreme Court, is one of the "basic civil rights of man". I think that says it all. 

Gays in the military: Gays have always and continue to serve our country proudly in the various branches of the military. Our armed services have not crumbled because of it.

Size and scope of government: The government should be allowed to operate within the powers described in the Constitution. They can raise and lower taxes, regulate or deregulate industries, invade or not invade countries, etc. WE THE PEOPLE can then decide whether to continue lending those politicians our support at the ballot box.
Religion: It's not really for me, but if it provides some people with a level of comfort then I have no  issues with that. Of course when it's used like a battering ram, then I feel it's my duty to point out my exact thoughts about the less than factual basis of said religion.

DH: I happen to like the DH. Watching a pitcher hit is not exactly my idea of an interesting at-bat. 

Steroids in sports: I honestly don't care what athletes take. I've never heard someone make the argument that they aren't going to watch a movie or a concert because the performers have had plastic surgery. Entertainers do what they feel they have to do to put forth their best performance. No difference with athletes.
Music: I'm not a big fan of most of what's popular today. That is to say that I'm an old fart who thinks things were better when pop music was targeted towards him. 
Movies: I think that Lawrence of Arabia and the two Godfathers are the best movies ever made.
Food: I'm partial to Chinese.
Superheroes: I'm partial to Superman. And I personally think that Captain America would kick the shit out of Batman any day of the week.

That's all for today boys and girls. Have a great weekend.

For the Love of Jebus

Some New Yorkers and others around the country are up in arms about the so called "ground zero Mosque" that is going to be built close to the former world trade centers. I find it somewhat amusing that those who are so adamant about the government staying out of their lives would now clamor for that very same government to step in to block what is essentially a private real estate matter. "Less government interference" they scream (unless it involves Muslims, of course). "Keep the government out of my church" they bellow, (unless that place of worship happens to be a mosque).

I don't remember any religious outrage when a christian blew up the federal building in Oklahoma. That's not exactly true. There were a lot of calls for retribution against Muslims until it was discovered that it was a a couple of white Christian males who carried out the attack. I don't remember a general wave of outrage and hatred against all Christians. Perhaps I'm just (to quote our former President) misremembering.

Islam is just as legitimate a religion as all the others that are based on some all knowing superman who lives in the sky and actually listens to and cares about your problems. The actions of extremists should never be taken to represent the thoughts of the whole. There are Christian extremists who feel it is their right and duty to kill doctors who perform abortions. Should all of Christianity be held accountable for their actions? There are Christian extremists who think that all non whites should leave America. Should all Christianity be held accountable for their thoughts and actions? The constitution guarantees us certain freedoms, among those are freedom of religion and speech. The mosque has a right to exist and people have a right to protest its existence. However the hypocrisy of those who would damn an entire religion over the actions of a few is shameful. There are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. I'm pretty sure most of them were not involved in the 9/11 plot, just as I'm fairly sure most of the 2.2 billion Christians in the world weren't in on the Oklahoma City bombing either.

 

I understand that people are very sensitive about the WTC site, but this mosque has nothing to do with the events that took place on 9/11. As far as I'm concerned, all religion is pretty silly, so this debate over who can worship what God seems an incredible waste of time and energy. How far away from ground zero does the mosque have to be before it's okay? 10 blocks? 20 blocks? 1,000 blocks? Just utterly ridiculous.

We Can Only Hope

I wrote this piece back in May of 2008. I stand by every word. Let's hope he means it this time. 

 Brett Favre announced his retirement in a tearful press conference yesterday. The press covered as though Lou Gehrig was announcing that he was retiring because he had a terminal disease. Bret Favre has long been one of the most self centered athletes in sports and I will certainly not miss him come the fall. His yearly tease of the Packers with his "will he retire or not" nonsense has cost the Packers a few years of development of their QB of the future. I have no idea whether Aaron Rodgers can lead the Packers to playoff glory and thanks to Brett Favre, neither do the Packers.

Somehow Sports Illustrated saw fit to name this former drug abuser it's sportsman of the year. I haven't seen a less inspiring choice since they picked the steroid twins (Sosa and McGwire) as their co-winners in 1998. Somehow the press seemed to buy that "I'm just a good old boy from Mississippi" line. After all, he didn't know no better. They gave him drugs and he just kept on taking them. Also, his badgering of teammates to sign contracts instead of holdout was pretty easy for someone with one of the richest contracts in NFL history. I never heard him say that he would be willing to donate some of his own contract to help the team sign one of those players.

Brett Favre stayed around until he broke Dan Marino's records for TD's and yardage. The fact that the Packers were very competitive this year was as much a shock to him as it was to everyone else. He could not have thought that his team, which was coming off a losing season and didn't sign any major free agents, would make it to the NFC championship game. He came back to break the records, the rest was just gravy. And now with no more records to break (he could continue to add to his all time record for passes intercepted), the 19th rated QB of all time (behind such legends as Marc Bulger and Jeff Garcia) will quietly retire to his estate in Mississippi. So long Brett, and try to stay away from the Vicodin if you can.

Original Musiquarium

Random thought for today is to wonder how anyone won a grammy in the seventies in a category that Stevie Wonder was competing in. The aptly named Mr. Wonder put together a string of albums in the seventies that may never be matched by a solo artist ever again. From 1972's "Music of My Mind" through 1980's "Hotter than July", Stevie put out masterpiece after masterpiece. From "Superwoman" through "Lately" it was a period of creativity that frankly boggles the mind. There were some fine singer/songwriters at work during the time from Paul Simon to Bruce Springsteen to James Taylor to Billy Joel, but none of them can match what Stevie did for pure artistry and consistency.

Stevie hasn't been quite the same since and doesn't put out music very often and has even produced some downright terrible songs like "Ebony and Ivory" and "I Just called to say I love you" (which was one of his biggest hits and actually won an academy award), but all transgressions can be forgiven for the absolutely stunning body of work that was completed in that ten year, six album span. I'll put that run up against anybody including the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or anyone else who has toiled in the Rock and Roll era.

The Gentleman from New York Is Recognized...

Sometimes Congressman Weiner leaves me absolutely speechless, as in the footage above from yesterday.

He actually smacks the mic on exit.
-SJ

Emancipation Proclamation

Random thought for the day: Magic Johnson and Michael Jordon need to shut the fU@K up about LeBron James and his decision to sign with the Miami Heat. First of all Magic Johnson happened to end on a team with two of the fifty greatest players of all time. Of course he wouldn't have tried to play on the same team as Larry Bird. Why should he? He came out of college and went right to a team that was ready to win an NBA championship. In Magic's first year in the league, he played alongside the MVP and eventual all time scorer in the NBA. He was joined by James Worthy two years later. He also had the benefit of a perennial first team all defensive player in Michael Cooper. If Lebron James had the fortune to be drafted on such a well stocked team I think his decision would have been a little different. So Magic STFU!

As far as Michael Jordan goes, he didn't win shit in his first seven years in the league and that was after playing 3 years in college. By his standard, Lebron James still has two more years before he has to produce a championship. Michael Jordon didn't win shit until he got teamed up with another top 50 player in Scottie Pippen. And as MJ showed in his hall of fame speech, he is a classless man. For what reason, I'm not sure, considering he has been given a pass by the public for all of his failings as a husband, father and frankly as a human being. However, he couldn't wait to say that he would never have done what Lebron had done. MJ STFU!

And frankly Charles Barkley needs to STFU too. He unsuccessfully chased a ring at the end of his career by going to Houston and teaming up with fellow top 50 players Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwan. He also had to chime in and say that he wouldn't have done what Lebron had done. Really Charles? Really? You need to STFU!

Last time I checked Lebron James was a FREE AGENT. Do these people not understand what that means? He wanted to go and play with his friends, who just happen to include one of the best 3 players in the league and the best big man available. It's that simple. His decision doesn't diminish the legacy of those who went before him, but some of the greatest players of all time sure did jump in to make sure that they got their two cents in to try and diminish Lebron's legacy. There is nothing worse than an old ballplayer telling you how much better the players and the game were when they played. That's what Magic, MJ and Charles are doing now. They just need to STFU! I haven't heard from Larry Bird yet, but he should remember that he also played alongside Kevin McHale, who just happens to be on that list of the 50 greatest players of all time.

Brief Respite

The president is still learning on the job. He makes mistakes (sometimes horrendous ones), but I honestly believe that he is as good as it's going to get in this political atmosphere. There is nothing I would like more than a real progressive president, who makes bold moves and helps the people who need help the most. However, we vote for President and not for king. Was health care, financial reform, etc. a lot less than we could have hoped for? Of course, but would it have even been on the agenda for a Republican president? I don't think so. And spare me the, "what we need is a real progressive in the office" language. First of all, a "real progressive" couldn't win the office of President. Anyone with a record of pushing a true left leaning agenda would be destroyed by the right wing press before they even got a chance at the White House. We live in a country where millions of people can be convinced to vote against their own self interest by lies and slogans. And if by some miracle they were elected, they would face a Congress who care more about being re-elected and sucking up to the money men and women who line their pockets than helping those among us who need help the most.

I do not live in the dreamland where this perfect leader exists. I can be disappointed in the President, but I am under no illusion that someone else would be pushing through bolder initiatives. The Congress is ineffective at best and crooked at worst. How exactly would this supposed messiah push through single payer, meaningful wall st. reform and economic stimulus when he's facing a bunch of people who only care about covering their own ass? It's disappointing to have people talk about sitting out the next election. That's perfectly fine, but if you do sit out then you should lose the right to complain about what comes next.

Do I think the President could do a better job? Do I think that the people in the White House should be smarter than allowing themselves to be duped by the noise machine at Fox news? Of course I do, but that doesn't mean that I'm ready to jump ship. I live in the real world. Anyone want to join me?

Happiness

There has been a lot of death, disappointment and worry in my life and the lives of my friends in recent years. More so than seems fair, all told, and there seems no shortage of challenges up ahead. My friend Tom barely survived being shot by a sniper in Iraq a couple of years ago. My friend Beth was killed in a horrific car accident in 2008.
Friends are out of work. Friends are coming back from wars to a jobless recovery. Personal debt seems to be spiraling out of control as the American taxpayers who saved the financial industry and the world economy look up in horror at the giant banks now driving them to ruin again. Half the country cannot even bring itself to agree on reality, lest it cede some annoying truth that it fears will keep their favored party or leader from power.
These can be called fairly shitty times for a number of reasons in my personal life and the world at large.

However, I would not say that I am unhappy. This is not because I’m a moron, or a deluded optimist. I should point out that this also does not mean that I’m “happy all the time” either.

In the media over the last few days, in radio, on television, and in magazines, I’ve noticed one of those possibly sinister synchronicities.
You know what I mean, -those days when you hear 5 different news stories in one morning about how coffee may help you stay younger because of some report somewhere, by some bunch of dicks you never heard of at some fuck-all institute somewhere… and then the next day you hear 6 more reports that say just the opposite, only to then start noticing an omnipresent ad campaign about some new coffee substitute called “caffeine water” that will give you the bullshit anti-ageing benefits you think you heard about on the drive in to work but with none of the health risks you think you might have seen on the TV late last night…
The synchronicity I think I may be picking up on this time is a confluence of research, studies and findings on “happiness” and the lack thereof in the modern world. The last straw and the thing that led me to write about this slippery theme was this well written, well researched New York magazine article on the conundrum of parenting’s joys and horrors. To read it you would think that no parents, anywhere on Earth (except in Denmark) are happy in direct proportion to how many kids they have had. Raising kids is no fucking picnic, but I’ve seen my friends with their children and when the tantrums die down, -and when the kids aren’t being out of control monsters there is happiness. I know. I’ve seen it despite what this article maintains with its numerous sources and decades old research.

By the way; I’m pretty sure I never want to hear the words “counterparts in the industrialized world” ever again.

In the past days I’ve seen news items about Danish people laughing through their kids terrible twos and the high rate of suicide in Scandinavian countries/ stories on the modern male’s search for identity and the good times their fathers had that now seem to elude them/ many more stories on women in the workplace and the misery they have earned in the place of the comforts they had pre-feminism/ and on, and on: One lousy fucking story about abstract misery in contemporary life after another. I tell you this is the kind of nonsense that made Camus flirt with ideas of suicide before a car accident took him right out of this world in 1960.

How can we continue to have so much handwringing and anxiety about happiness when nobody can agree on what the fuck happiness is?

Is it purely an emotion? Is it a thing you get or achieve and maintain; is it an outlook, a philosophy? Maybe it’s all of these things but I can tell you this:
-regardless of what it means specifically to you, no one is “meant” to be happy all of the time.
That is not reality, it’s not sensible and it’s not even desirable when you really think about it. The only people who are “happy” all of the time are heroin addicts (if they indeed can get heroin all the time) and idiots, -particularly those half wits on earth whose stupidity allows them an escape from deliberation, reflection, nagging regret or conflict.
And if happiness were freedom from pain?
-Doped up hospital patients in intensive care units would be envied the world over for their state of happiness. I don’t think they are envied by anyone.
I think part of the problem is that the word we are actually looking for when we often speak of happiness (which is only a momentary thing) is satisfaction (which is a lasting thing). Somehow we have relegated satisfaction to imply “barely okay,” or “moderately acceptable.” These are not even parts of the meaning of the word: Satisfaction means having your needs met, or arriving at some means to fulfill them. Satisfaction is a kind of “winning.” Satisfaction is defined by the need and want it completes.

Satisfaction is underrated, and people who don’t think so probably don’t have any. That is in fact why they are “unhappy” and not because they cannot find “happiness.”

Happiness is in fact easy to find. Happiness is everywhere.

Just look at the shiny new cars, the tits on some beautiful girl walking down the street, the smell of a brick oven slice of pizza, a favorite TV show, the bright blue waves on a sunny beach, your pet dog, your neighbor's pet dog, or cold beer. Happiness isn’t hard to find, merely hard to keep permanently. Such is its very nature, it would cease to be happiness if it were everywhere all the time.

Happiness is nothing without its novelty, but satisfaction has no such precondition.

If you want to make yourself happy, go get a bucket of ice cream.
If you want satisfaction, make yourself a hearty Italian meal in your own kitchen from a recipe you’ve never tried before with fresh selections from a butcher you can trust and vegetables from a local green grocer.

I can remember the first time I truly experienced a sense of satisfaction, of genuine fulfillment. I can remember when I realized that, craving happiness all the time is for suckers and juveniles.

One night, after just having moved away from home in the winter of 1990, in the early days of that November, I lay awake in the factory space a friend and I were renting in Williamsburg Brooklyn. It was an enormous late 19th industrial building with 25 foot high ceilings. We had a freight elevator the size of my childhood bedroom, we had a woodshop with table saws, band saws and drill presses. It was freezing. It was cold. It was dark. It was my new home. My first night there, we had no heat. Lying in my loft bed, some fifteen feet in the air, I was looking up at the skylight that hung above. It was a dilapidated steel and glass model that was probably held together at critical points with nothing better than years of coagulated roofing tar. Through the odd spots that had no rust spattered panes I could see the night sky, with its dearth of stars thanks to the city’s bright lights. I stared up, my mind growing increasingly blank at its terrifying independence, listening to the deafening pulse of my own temples, and the beating of my own young heart in the dark…
I thought to myself: “I have to remember this feeling.”

That feeling was freedom.

I think I still believe this, and maybe I even know it. That is to say, I know it the only way you can know anything my friends; I know it to be a fact: It is a lack of satisfaction that murders people the world over century after century, and not unhappiness. With no hope or means toward satisfaction, fulfillment or purpose, life is dim, joyless and scary.

Just ask the Rolling Stones.
-SJ

Basterd! That's right with an E!

I guess my random thoughts aren't all that frequent. Trust me, I'm trying, but apparently my brain is a rocky place where interesting thoughts can find no purchase. Anyway, I recently watched a few of the best picture candidates from last year and came out with the distinct thought that Inglorious Basterds was the best of the bunch. The Hurt Locker didn't strike me as anything particularly new or original and Avatar was "Dances with Smurfs". Up in the Air was quite entertaining, but didn't really have the weight of something that I would consider as best picture material. Tarantino has always been the most original of directors working in the big budget world of Hollywood. His movies are always the sum total of his ideas. If he wants to make a kung fu movie with an homage to every bad 70's Shaw brothers movie, then that's what he does. If he wants to make a movie based on all the bad action drive in movies that he saw growing up, then that's what he does. He has been more successful in converting those ideas to the screen in some of his movies as opposed to others, but he always hits the target that he's aiming at. Inglorious Basterds gives us an alternative view of WWII and while you'll be reminded of movies like "The Dirty Dozen", the actual execution of the movie is something entirely different. I won't give away any plot points, but it was surprising on many levels. It was also fun. And Hollywood definitely needs a little bit more of that.

Remembering Michael Jackson

I’m just taking this day to remember Michael Jackson, and what an accomplished child molester he was. I’m taking the day to reflect on this and remember his contributions to the long tradition of pederasty and child abuse in Western civilization because everyone seems to want me to forget it today.

–Well, fat chance America.

Just calling Michael Jackson a great entertainer and the ‘King of Pop’ makes about as much sense now as just referring to Charlie Manson as a singer songwriter.

Jackson is dead. He clearly had no easy life despite his wealth and fame, but sorry, none of the counter rationalizations about racism, even his own personal history of mental and physical abuse at the hands of his own father can erase the fact that Michael Jackson was a devoted molester of children. The attempts to soften or obfuscate the magnitude of Jackson’s pedophilia with charges and excuses of pervasive racist persecution or ongoing homophobia suffered by Jackson are just panicked reactionary defenses from fans. Nobody on Earth needs to have Michael Jackson explained to them: he tried to run hard and fast from his ‘blackness’ with every surgical trick he could buy, (and he had a lot of money). Jackson was not Gay, he never had a romantic relationship with any adult that was more than a contrived PR stunt. For the record, Gays engage in relationships with consenting adults, they are not interested in children, therefore Michael Jackson was not Gay. He was a persistent and dedicated predator of children who had to leave the country for a time in order to continue being an out of control weirdo. None of his gold records can erase that fact.

I have no problem saying that Michael Jackson was one of the most talented singer songwriters and entertainers I’ve ever seen. -I also have no problem saying that he was a monster in the same breath.

I have no problem saying Michael Jackson was an unrepentant sexual predator of children who just happened to be a great entertainer anymore than I would have trouble saying:

Robert Blake is a liar who shot his wife to death, who happens to be an actor.
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 12 year old girl, and happens to have made some really great movies.
OJ Simpson was one of the greatest running backs to ever play in the NFL, and also happens to have murdered two people.
Woody Allen is still married to his daughter, and happens to have made some great movies.
Mel Gibson is a raging anti-Semite and happens to have made a few great movies.
Matthew Broderick killed two people in Ireland.

I don’t know why we have such a tough time as a country accepting that accomplished, talented people can be entirely awful, shitty human beings.
It’s childish.
It’s what’s at the heart of our persecution of politicians for extramarital affairs. Frankly, I couldn’t give a shit if Mark Sanford cheated on his wife with some Argentinean piece of ass, and neither should anyone else who actually cares about their government and country. The issue is that he probably traveled to fuck her with tax payer dollars, -or- hey, how about judging Sanford on his actual record (which is reason enough actually) and not feigning outrage just because he happens to be a Republican (but in this case a hypocrite which is a legitimate reason to pillory any politician who runs on “family values.”)

We can’t separate who someone is, from what wrongs they have done, or use one quality to negate another in considering the character and worth of our elected leaders and cultural icons.

So remember Michael Jackson for who he was: a drug addled, pill popping child molester, and the man who hadn’t made a good record since 1983’s Thriller and not what he died as, -a fondly remembered entertainer excused by all his adoring fans for all his trespasses against the most defenseless among us: children.

-SJ

It Is Alive!

Since I have been unable to come up with a topic to post about and I'm pretty sure that no one reads this blog anymore, I think I'll just go back to putting up some random thoughts from time to time. Today's Random Thought is that Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen, is probably the most perfect rock and roll song I've ever heard. It's about desperation, urgency, love, rebellion, and ultimately about escaping the bonds of complacency and reaching for a dream. All are themes that rock and roll are built on, but I think this one does the best of putting them all together. There's a great sax solo and an iconic guitar solo to boot. I know they put Chuck Berry on the disc that they included on the Voyager,(and is now sailing somewhere through the Milky Way)as an example of Rock and roll music, but I would have chosen this one as the best example of the art form. Just my opinion and my random thought for today.

Isn’t It Just Beautiful When Racists Talk about their “Souls?”

For anyone, (any ‘sane’ anyone that is), not dedicated to self –deception in order to make their own juvenile political views appear to be anything other than race hatred and neo fascism, the author of Arizona's immigration law, State Senator Russell Pearce is the man who boldly says what the fearful bigots are not skillful enough to verbalize, and not empowered to propose. But he’s not alone. Congressman Duncan Hunter of California recently said "We're not being mean. We're just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen… it's what's in our souls." This from a man whose only effort made toward becoming an American was that his parents fucked here, and his mother squeezed him out within American borders. In light of Rand Paul’s “explanations” this past week, we should not kid ourselves about racism’s persistence as a worldview in the minds of the middle class and working classes. I won’t discuss the Tea Baggers’ stance on deportation of American-born children, is too laughably moronic and predictable.

Senator Pearce is now telling constituents that he wants to pass a new measure, to revoke citizenship granted to the children born in the United States unless their parents are already citizens. Pearce is squarely aiming at the removal of Mexicans, a popular and easy population to target historically for the last couple of centuries. Nothing takes people’s minds off of an ineffectual elected official who’s done little, than appearing to “do something about the wetbacks.”

Get used to seeing a lot more of this term: “anchor baby.”

Basically, as I’m sure you are able to easily infer, an “anchor” baby is the child of an “illegal” alien whose child is born here, stateside. -Well infer further: this specifically means Mexicans. This is specifically, centrally, and fundamentally about race. No one is proposing Canadians, Poles, Italians and the Irish (Not since the turn of the century anyway) grab their kids and split. Even East Indians, Chinese, Philippinos and West Africans are spared Senator Pearce’s special attention and that of other race baiters we have carelessly elected as legislators… so far. -But eventually, “they’ll come for everybody.” And we know who “they” always is: it’s the eternal cadre of bigots for whom all is never enough.

Rush Limbaugh is still “a big fat idiot” for lying about this issue, and his listeners are racist assholes for playing along. I’ve written before that this entire issue of legalization is about race. It is not about eliminating a perpetual underclass per se, but keeping that underclass perpetually without any rights. These “laws” by Senator Pearce and others are just scams, ensuring an eternal community of migrant laborers for Arizonans and others in the American South West.

It has never been enough for immigrants in America to do the jobs no one else will do, it’s never been enough for immigrants to be paid criminally less for doing dirty, dangerous work. Immigrants have to be humiliated in America; they have to be miserable and afraid for their lives, or a bunch of cowboy-booted creeps will start to scream, bitch and moan about how unfair life is.

But this isn’t a new development, just last year, ninety-two members of Congress proposed a bill that would further amend the 14th Amendment so that children born in the United States would not be granted citizenship if their parents aren’t already citizens…

So what exactly is in the “souls” of Americans who think it’s just fine to keep exploiting generations of people for centuries and deny them any possibility of benefiting from their own hard work and sacrifice? …Certainly not a hint of irony or shame as Mexican immigrants endure race hatred and legalized persecution in the actual places they named centuries ago, like Texas, Arizona… New Mexico.

-SJ

“What Can Men Do Against Such Reckless Hate?”

-King Theoden, (from J.R.R Tolkkien’s The Two Towers)

It should be no surprise to me that the works of Tolkien, an author relegated to the plastic bin of adolescent fantasy genres continues to rise above all others in my daytime mind as I look at the shaping of the 21st century. I’m surprised and even a little embarrassed at myself. -It feels like a nerdy impulse. As if nothing profound could exist among the chapters and books of a body of work so widely read, obsessed over and loved, his three most notable books are often ignored and abjured as simple adventures. For all my self-professed independence, maybe, -just maybe- I buy into all of that; my convictions dwarfed, as everyone’s attitudes are, by the opinions and tastes of the masses.

Tolkien himself aggressively dismissed any analyses or critiques that cited possible allegories, however salient and obvious. This may have been the manifest fear Tolkien had and shared with all authors: That their work become dated by too close an association with a specific history or time.

Yet Tolkien’s works, the legendarium he built meticulously across several years, with its invented languages, histories, cultures, plague me when I read headlines today. Beyond his symbolism of bound rings ruling all, as the actual symbol of the nuclear model of the atom haunted the minds of children from Hawaii to Sibera after the bombings of Japan in 1945; beyond his imagining of an undying embodiment of fascism in the caricature named Sauron (The fictionalized Hitler and made-up Stalin of his Middle Earth), beyond his proto Orwellian warning of totalitarian rule in the image of Sauron’s all seeing eye; it is Tolkien’s ideas and conjectured suppositions about race that are the most haunting today.

Yes, race.

As a child, I was aware from the time I was able to speak, that I was an American, but that I was different from “Americans.” This is something that was told to me by the television I saw, the books I read and the world I walked in. It is something that in my darkest personal moments, I even told myself.

I didn’t think of someone who looked like me when I thought of the word American. I thought of African-Americans; the various hyphenated Caucasians: Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, but not brown, tan skinned, or Asian people or anyone who spoke with any accent or had an “ethnic” name. I knew I was born here, but my mother’s coming to the United States of her own will, in a determined against-all-odds struggle for her American dream and her citizenship somehow made me illegitimate in my own mind. I have always felt intrinsically foreign, despite the fact that I think in English, despite the fact I cannot think of any other place as home. My mother’s origin in immigration placed an asterisk next to my skull that I could not outrun. Because of this mediation of my nationality, I have always been sensitive to portrayals of race in fiction and “news.” As long as I can remember, I have always been “looking for the Indians.” In every story about mass struggle, war, national upheaval in any time there is a group of people central to the narrative who are portrayed less as persons and more as a identity-less force to be overcome and destroyed: an inhuman force like a storm or tidal wave. This is the role of the Indian in orthodox American “Western” fiction: Indians “oppose” the movement of “Americans” westward and must be outlasted, defeated, massacred. To me, in Tolkien’s world, “the Indians” are the Orc hordes and the “men of the East.” They only exist to oppose and threaten the peoples of West, and for that reason only. Therefore they can conversely only be defeated and destroyed. This is the essence of racism: the casting of others into a group deemed disposable by virtue of a supposed non-humanity.

How I can think of a book such as Return of the King at times like these, with two wars going on, with fundamentalists claiming that cartoon writers are fair game for murderers, with entire swathes of human beings being convicted by the flimsiest of associations, or by assumptions made of the many based upon the criminal actions of the few? It seems silly. But Tolkien’s work, with all its grandeur, profundity, and sinister contraindications is of utmost relevance at times like these. His trilogy is an attempt at recreating a lost world in compensation for the loss of the Saxon culture and its foundation myths under the Norman conquests. In creating a world, Tolkien intentionally or incidentally shed unflattering light on our own.

The turmoil, massacres, internecine exhaustion of natural resources and corruption threatening to destroy Middle Earth look like every century on our own Earth for which there is reliable history to read and contemplate. And now Middle Earth’s holocaust is again frighteningly applicable to our time. Specifically, what is happening in America -again, this time?

Racial profiling has been made into law in Arizona.
What is next? -Concentration camps to hold “illegals?” (read Mexicans, the Indians of our current narrative/reality) What is happening is this: The measure of our worth as citizens of the world, as human beings will be determined by the extent to which we allow fear, hatred to inform our actions toward one another. Today’s Orcs will not be conveniently swallowed up by a sudden earthquake at the end of the story after the screaming and fighting is done. History is anything but convenient.

We would do well to improve on Tolkien’s story, by recognizing the personhood of the masses of people coming to America to work at the jobs no one wants to do. We would do well to recognize and concede our common humanity.

We must remember, with an appropriate measure of horror that King Theoden’s question in the title of this post was never answered, -not with words in any case.
-SJ

My thanks to Oso, Holte Ender, Lazer's Edge and Mad Mike for inspiring this train of thought.

In the Eye of the Beholder

The public education system in this country is broken. It is not the fault of the teachers (although mass firings would lead you to believe it is), it is not the fault of the students, it is not the fault of the parents and it is not the fault of the government. The fault lies in the system itself. In a pre Brown V. Board of Education world, the public school system was comprised of two parts, one for white students and one (that was called "equal") for blacks. The schools for the black children were woefully under resourced (and in many cases overcrowded) and had no chance (for the most part) to compete for the best available teaching talent. Flash forward to today, 55 years after the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed the policy of "separate but equal" and we have a public school system that in many ways mirrors the landscape as it stood in the pre Brown days.

The policy of "separate but equal" was kept in place, in part, to not only keep children of different skin colors apart, but in order to perpetuate a permanent underclass in this country. The policy proved incredibly successful in that respect. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, life for those on the wrong side of the "separate" doctrine remained amazingly stagnant. The tidal wave of prosperity that swept the entire country following the end of WWII somehow managed to elude those at the very bottom of the socio-economic chain. In the south, especially, those born with the wrong skin pigmentation could not realistically hope that their lives would be any better than those of their parents. And the law of land saw to it that their opportunities for advancement were very limited indeed.

The changes that were brought about due to Brown and the subsequent Civil Rights acts and voting rights act of the following decade led to a new outlook. The 60's ushered in a new age of enlightenment. LBJ dreamed of a "Great Society" and of the end of discrimination and poverty and for a time, the country, caught up in the age of Aquarius, went along for the ride. Schools were desegregated; For the first time in the history of the nation a thriving black/minority middle class emerged; affirmative action helped to limit the effects of discriminatory hiring practices; And education, which for over a century had provided a barrier to any chance of upward mobility, gave those with less, a chance for more.

Then came the 80's and the attacks on the hopes and goals of the "Great Society" came fast and furious. Our nation became much less concerned with US and much more concerned with ME. White flight to the suburbs became a rushing torrent and our inner cities were left to be, more and more, the last refuge for those with no other choice. One of the major consequences of the flight to the suburbs was the loss of the tax base that helped to support the public school system. Property values dropped and the stream of revenue that helped to support the education of our children began to dry up. With the loss in revenue came a loss in the quality of education that could be provided to those children who happen to be unfortunate enough to be born in a underfunded district..

Funding for public schools comes from a combination of federal, state and local government money. Federal and State money are usually handed out equally based on school populations, but local money is most often kept within the locality. So the upshot of that policy is that, here in NY there are schools that have computer labs that provide every student with a computer, and there are those that require that multiple students to share one. There are schools that have average class sizes of 20 and those that have average class sizes of 40. There are schools that have modern facilities and textbooks, and there are schools that have to convert closets to classroom spaces because they have no more room to fit their expanding population. I know I've taken a long time to get to my point, but here it is: The simple question that should be posed is why, do we as a country, value some children more than others?

The beginning of one the most quoted and repeated lines in all of history says, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal". Let's look past the obvious contradictions of the statement at the time it was written, to the actual meaning of those words. We, as Americans believe as part of our DNA, that everyone in this country should have an equal opportunity to succeed. We believe that we are a meritocracy despite all the evidence to the contrary. Life may not actually work this way, but we, as a people, are not ready to admit that a kind of social Darwinism should reign supreme. Yet as we close our eyes to the absolute inequity of our public school system, that is exactly what we are doing.

"Let's fire all the teachers!", some say. "It's all the parents' fault", still others will claim. Yet as we point fingers at each other, another generation of our children is being lost. Wait, let me rephrase that, another generation of lost souls is being created. As it was before Brown and the Civil Rights Acts, we, as a country are in back in the business of perpetuating a permanent underclass. People can go to the movies and watch a Sandra Bullock movie, where one black kid is "saved" and becomes a success and believe that all is right with the world. Unfortunately, that story is not repeated very often. Most of us do not have an extraordinary skill. Most of us would not stand out on a field or court. Most of us would not stand out against the best or brightest in any of the endeavors that we have chosen to undertake. That has not, however, precluded us from some acquiring some level of achievement or satisfaction in our lives.

I took my education for granted, as I'm sure most of us did. The children who now attend public schools in well funded districts probably take their education for granted as well. They have what they need to satisfy any intellectual curiosity that may be sparked during their typical day. Children who come up on the short end of the birth lottery most typically would not have the resources to satisfy that curiosity. When the intellectual spark is not nurtured into a fire, it eventually disappears. We, as a country, are currently in the business of choosing who gets that opportunity and who does not. And what happens to those kids whose curiosity isn't nurtured? You already know the answer. We all do.

One Giant Leap

I watched the House of Representatives pass the Senate amendments to the health care bill. It's hard to put into words exactly how I feel. When I think of the fact that FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton tried and failed to get any meaningful health care reform passed, I stand in awe of the Democratic leadership and the current President of the United States. I have, at times, been extremely critical of the Democrats and the President over the past year because of there perceived lack of commitment to reform. I berated them for throwing single payer overboard before the fight had even begun. I berated them for trying to find some compromise with the Republicans. I berated them for giving up the public option when they were only fighting against themselves. I berated my fellow bloggers for losing faith. There have been times when I was sure that nothing was ever going to get done. There have been times when I have lost faith in the White House. There have been times when the thought of health care reform seemed an unreachable goal. I stand humbled today. Government can indeed work for the people. Government can indeed make a positive difference in the lives of its citizens. Sometimes I think we lose sight of that fact. This bill is of course not everything we wanted, but as with Civil Rights, once the ball starts rolling, it is very hard to stop. One step will inevitably lead to another and then another. The first one is always the hardest. And now 75 years after FDR first tried to get universal health coverage for all Americans, we have finally taken our first steps toward that lofty goal.

Thank you Nancy Pelosi. Thank you Harry Reid. And thank you Mr. President. This is what leadership looks like. Let's not forget that the next time the Republicans decide to take up arms against the public good. Let's not forget what it feels like to be able to tell the American people that their government actually works for them. And remember, never stop fighting until the fight is done. Here endeth the lesson.

P.S.

Now let's do something about the absolutely criminal condition of our public schools. I have no idea how this country can perpetuate a system that arms only those children who are fortunate enough to live in wealthy districts with the tools needed to compete in a global economy. How do we allow a de facto "separate but equal" policy in education to exist? Something needs to be done now!

That’s Right. This Is What I Voted for.

I’m sticking my head out of the water ever so briefly just for today, but plan to be back in action here as usual and on the new, new Mad Mike’s America next Tuesday, God willing.

The GOP politicians are insisting on going down in flames on this issue of Healthcare. Taking comfort in their own immovable and venal opposition to Healthcare reform, it’s akin to shouting, “Deregulation now! Deregulation forever!!!” and not all that bizarre and disingenuous from their opposition to civil rights legislation in the 1960s in the face of its eventual passage.

For all the current bill has wrong with it (and there are a few logistical things that should be fixed, things no Republican has bothered to point out because telling lies about the bill is a far better way to stop it), here are two things that Republicans should have conceded were "good" things while they were shouting that we should “start over from scratch:”

-The outlawing of preexisting conditions as the basis for denial of coverage.
-The removal of coverage caps.

The war the GOP undertook against the sick and infirm isn’t over, but it’s clear Mr. Boehner and his fellow lobbyists in office are going to lose. I’ve been emailing them for the last two months and telling them so, -politely but unequivocally.

You can email the Minority Leader here:
http://republicanleader.house.gov/Contact/

-SJ

Movie Trailer

Here's the trailer from "The likes of Us". Directed by SJ and written by Mycue23

And the Winner is...

Here's the only winner in today's health care debate:

Why We Fight

We fight because "...in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope". We fight because senior citizens should have not have to chose between food and medicine. We fight because American Individualism is not an open invitation to social Darwinism. We fight because Gay and Lesbian are not dirty words. We fight because we believe that all men are created equal. We fight because we believe that people should be judged by the content of their character. We fight because having tens of thousands of people die each year because of a lack of affordable health care is morally unacceptable. We fight because having thousands of children go hungry in the richest nation on the planet is morally reprehensible. We fight because every child deserves access to an education that will prepare them to compete in the global economy. We fight because torture committed in our name is still torture. We fight because everyone should have the right to marry who they chose. We fight because we only have one planet. We fight because the status quo is unacceptable. We fight because a lie repeated often enough must not be permitted to become the truth. We fight because women deserve to paid the same as men. We fight because our veterans deserve to be treated with respect they have earned. We fight because the expenditure for the Iraq war could have paid for health care for every man, woman and child in the country who cannot afford it. We fight because the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We fight because the forces massed against us never take a day off. We fight because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We fight because as FDR put it, at the height of the Depression,

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of the those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little".

That is why we fight. We fight because we must.

What Will They Say?

Yesterday’s litany of lies coming from the GOP’s CPAC were not novel in and of themselves, nor was their degree, or their nakedness anything special. It is to be expected that elites out of touch and removed from their professed ideals and goals would also insist on being a safe distance from reality. Reality is not pretty for today’s Republican Party. But that’s fitting, because the rest of the world has had to live with the mess they made for over a decade while they denied it and lied about it.

Apparently, some right wing politicians still don’t accept that nobody’s convinced they don’t bear the blame for country’s woes. Some in the right wing electorate just line up to hear newer, bolder lies with rapt attention, listening for something, some detail or dangling participle they can use to make themselves feel good about just how bad things are. After all, how do you tell an entire voting block that the last eight years were a mistake, -when they voted you in?
It would mean Republicans conceding the truth about deceptions, hypocrisies and ineptitude, -and in a manner of speaking laying the blame squarely at the feet of the unquestioning average Republican voter:
-who never complained about spending when the deficit was sky rocketing under George W. Bush.
-who never seemed to notice that the size of Government was growing under Republican control and influence.
-who trusted the capabilities of an administration that allowed the deadliest, costliest attack on the nation in its entire history.

A bright example of the right’s profound state of denial is a figure like Dick Armey, whose activities in tandem with lobbyists should cost him the price of admission to any association or relationship with an allegedly “grass roots” movement such as the Tea Baggers. Armey delegitimizes any attempt at raising the notions freedom and “rights” to the fore. At CPAC Armey said, as if directly speaking to President Obama: “You're intellectually shallow. You're a romantic. You're self-indulgent. You have no ability…" Armey called President Obama "the most incompetent president perhaps in our lifetime." After only one year in office to go on, Armey's "opinion" would appear highly unlikely, to even an idiot with no memory.

I have an opinion of my own, based upon years of observing Mr. Armey as an avergae citizen:

Dick Armey is nothing but a well practiced liar, playing to a captive audience, spouting nonsense behind closed doors to a friendly crowd eager to hear their worst nightmare, a Black president, called “arrogant,” “self-righteous” and other silly code words that are place holders for uppity nigger.

I have to confess, I am glad this bloated liar has lived to see a Black man in the White House.
To Mr. Armey I say: “Sorry Dick, the bigots and bums in your party lost in 2008. Go cry at Senator Helms’s gravesite you elitist fat cat of a shill.”

We the people, all of us who insist on being told the truth, the facts, and not some cock-and-bull story about our own country's greatness, won that victory in 2008:

Men, Women, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Gay, the middle class, the poor and not so poor, all of us,

-Americans won and Dick Armey lost.

So eat it, Dick.

But my smugness is tempered. Laughing at liars only gets you so far.

The Associated Press ran a story yesterday on the CPAC speeches that all but lent authority to some of the more ludicrous nonsense spoken by Liz Cheney and others, -as if a lie offered as an opinion somehow deserved the same time and respect as a fact.

I wonder what historians, the ultimate arbiters of reality for future generations, will say.
What will the textbooks of the future say?
-That the performance of the Bush Administration is a matter of opinion? That there are different sets of truths? -One reactionary, -one populist, -one skeptical yet others more self professedly “correct?”

Saying something doesn’t make it so. Believing something doesn’t make it so.

Everyone in America knows the GOP’s policies wrecked the country over a period of many years. Some of us in America just don’t want to believe it, -and will believe anything else instead.

Thankfully the facts do not require belief, just acceptance.
…Well that, and a historian principled enough to record them as they happened.
-SJ

May Tomorrow Be a Better Day

There's comes a time when you have to face that fact that you've come to the end. I have been contemplating this particular thought for the past 6 months or so. I just don't have anything else constructive to add to the political dialogue among the great group of bloggers that we have gotten to know over the past couple of years, so I think it's time for me to call it a day. I feel like I've said all I have to say. I've gone back and read some of the stuff I wrote during the past couple of years and I realize that as time has gone on, I've become less focused and less effective at making a coherent point. As SJ stated in his recent post, the quality of writing among the blogs I regularly read is outstanding. I certainly feel like there's nothing I could say that couldn't be said equally well or better by a whole host of great writers. You guys are all great (and I won't make the mistake of trying to list you all, but you know who you are)and I would just say, keep on doing what you're doing. As for me, I'll probably spend some time over at my long ignored sports blog. The blog will still be here. Hopefully SJ will continue to add articles from time to time but if not, at least the links will point people in the right direction.

So with more of a whimper than a bang, I wish you all a fond farewell and as Kasey Kasem always says, "keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars".

The Real Conspiracy No One Talks About

I won’t write about Sarah Palin anymore. I made the decision a few months back here at Random Thoughts. These latest allegations of how she may have abused her elected position by having her husband inserted into administrative roles nor the allocations of special flights for her family members will not do anything to further lower my estimation of her, -anymore than it could disappoint her followers. They’ve bought in; I have “opted out” from the moment of her selection as John McCain’s running mate in 2008. Sarah Palin was a short-sighted GOP ploy to get at disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters to vote Republican. It didn’t work.
The woman quit her elected office, that’s all anyone needs to know.
Sarah Palin’s importance is directly proportionate to the extent to which she is utilized to sabotage legitimate debate. A bright light needs to be shone on the wealthy power brokers interested in her continuing centrality in the minds of working class Americans angry about all the things they cannot bring themselves to blame the GOP for directly. Ultimately, it’s a job for legitimate journalists.

Moving on.

I’m of the mind now more than ever that no reform, no meaningful lawmaking that protects the lives of citizens and enables their pursuit of happiness is possible without the outlawing of lobbying in Washington DC. This is no radical idea: Remember that the nation’s capitol was moved to its present location (a swamp at the time) to get it away from business interests looking to corrupt its purpose.

Tort reform is a despicable ruse. It is the most dangerous thing the Republican Party has tried to push since their overall blanket attack on regulation as a concept for the last couple of decades.
To hear lobbyists, trade associations and lawyers tell it, -the runaway costs and problems of the Healthcare industry are a direct result of greedy little Americans suing their doctors and providers. To hear lobbyists tell it, -one would think that there was no such thing as a legitimate lawsuit. Read all the communications from Healthcare lobbyists and you would think the Healthcare industry wasn’t posting rising profits year after year after year. You’d think in fact that they were in need of defense from the very Americans and businesses that they overcharge and then fleece with technicalities and rescission.

Proposing Tort reform and opposing the Public option or Single-Payer proposals for medical coverage is no different than the Healthcare industry insisting that it be allowed to operate as a mafia; in unbridled collusion with all of its supposed competitors against the people, and not ever to be held responsible for the quality of service it provides.

The Healthcare industry is growing and profiting off of human misery. Enabling the Healthcare industry to operate with less regulation, without the threat of court action will not lower costs, it will raise them. Anybody who opposes this administration or any of their representatives’ efforts at Healthcare reform to the extent that they will protect the interests of a for-profit industry is a sucker.

The Healthcare reform battle is one aspect of a long-running civil war going on in America; the haves are never satisfied with just how bad the have-nots have it. The haves cannot abide have-nots at all. They’d prefer America be populated with generations of have-nones. The interesting question is: just how did the haves convince so many have-nots to defend, fight and yell for them at all those town halls in 2009? How were so many people convinced that reigning in the Healthcare industry and getting coverage for everyone was somehow un-American? How did such a basic right, -a right to health and medicine, come to be ascribed to “Socialism” when so many Senior citizens already have that right?

This question, this puzzle of how Americans are convinced to act against their own best interests first arose in our costliest war, waged in the 19th century within our own borders. Why did so many indigent poor southerners fight a war on behalf of wealthy slave owners? The system of slavery was invariably responsible for their joblessness at the time, much as the mistreatment and exploitation of underemployed immigrants wrecks the fortunes of working class Americans today: -but if you dare to suggest that everyone be paid the same minimum wage the world over, you’ll be attacked from all sides with a reflexive ignorance.

Think about it. -If we pay everyone the same minimum wage, there will be less to no incentive to hire illegal immigrants; Americans might take those jobs. But no one gets angry at our abusively hierarchical economy and the businesses, manufacturers, and farming operations forced to work within it by the lowballing, colluding corporations that they often supply as vendors. There are entire swathes of American industry that won’t hire any workers at a living wage, and American citizens instead turn and blame the “illegals” themselves, as if they set their own wages. Let’s not kid ourselves, when corporations and industry can’t exploit “illegals” who will come to America, said Industry will go overseas for the opportunity to pay workers less. This is what free markets really add up to: the sidestepping of regulations and standards that American workers fought to have put into law. This is also what is at the heart of Tort reform: the attempted removal of any consequences for abuse, exploitation or just plain negligence or malpractice on the part of corporations.

How is Healthcare reform deemed oppressive, un-American and “Socialist,” whereas Tort reform is ascribed no negative connotation whatsoever? How are Americans repeatedly convinced that the fortunes of the Wealthy, the concerns of the corporations are their own?

The answers are as ugly as the often self-inflicted inequality we perpetuate when we stand against ourselves in defense of industry’s ever expanding control and power.

-SJ

Tea Time

Tom Tancredo, former Congressman from Colorado, opened the Tea Party convention by attacking not only the President, but the current system that allowed Barack Obama to be voted into office in the first place. Some choice quotes from his "speech":

“people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”

“the cult of multiculturalism, aided by leftists, liberals all over who don’t have the same idea about America as we do.”

“we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

This is the "keynote address" for the Tea Party convention. The Tea Party movement, which was started to protest the growth of the Federal Government and a perceived lack of response from elected officials, has devolved into a home for the disgruntled and disenchanted of all stripes. I would ask those who are asking for “their country back”, to define exactly what that means. I do believe that there are people who initially joined the TP movement out of a sincere concern for they viewed as a lack of response from leadership. The movement was quickly taken over by those who saw it as a great way to cover their “Fear of a Black Planet” (to quote Public Enemy). Tancredo is obviously making it perfectly clear what he means. In his America, those who don’t look like him are not welcome in the political discussion. In his America, the President will always be a White, protestant male. In his America, people of color know their place. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for the rest of us), that country doesn’t exist anymore and we are all the better for it.

I honestly believe that there is reason to think that our elected officials have lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent. I believe that there is an argument to made about the size and scope of government as well. However belonging to an organization that is rapidly taken over by bigots looking for cover to attack the very diversity that has made this country what it is, does not seem like the best way to get a point across. As for Tancredo, people like him will always look for an audience to try and spread their particular brand of hate. We can only hope that as time goes on, the audience for this particular brand of “political speech” gets smaller and smaller.