Seeds

December 31, 2009

It is a strange phenomenon.
    Republicans think that if the Democrats fail to bring about strong healthcare reform it will be to their advantage in the next election. And they are probably right. What is so strange about this, and so telling about us as a people, is that we will hold this failure against the Democrats who, for the most part, supported and worked hard to get this reform into law, and hand power over to the Republicans, who did everything possible to defeat it.
    Let me get this straight. We will punish those who tried and failed, and reward those who were hell-bent on stopping it.
    A more logical conclusion would be to elect more liberals into the Senate so that things that need to be done, and there are many, will actually get done.
    But no. It seems that our political leanings swing like a pendulum, which allows conservatives to continue to be subversive in the secure knowledge that no matter what they do, they will eventually take back power in order to screw things up again.
    It seems that they are relying on the political ignorance of the many, and this is an insult that that has born them many fruits in the past.
    Why do we fall for this? Why support such madness? It seems that "once burned, twice shy" does not hold for politics. Or maybe the American people like things the way they are.
    Conservatism runs contrary to everything good that this nation stands for. It supports global warming, consumerism (and therefore materialism), never saw a war it didn't like, isolationism, theocracy (very different from democracy, as Iran plainly shows us), ignorance (condemning our brightest citizens as elitists, and running 3rd rate candidates for office), a growing and destructive disparity between rich and poor, revisionism of the Constitution (limited it to 2 or 3 Amendments), rabble rousing propagandists, the kind of reregulation that led to the recent Great Recession, and the previous Great Depression, the gradual demise of Social Security and Medicare — the list goes on and on.
    They hold this incredibly negative agenda secure in the belief that the pendulum will eventually swing their way as long as they can subversively hamstring liberal causes, like healthcare reform and so many other just causes. When you vote Republican on a national level, that is what you are voting for.
    How do we open the eyes of the public to this ridiculous, self-destructive cycle?

December 30, 2009

I am not surprised how many conservative leaders are grumbling about the latest failed terrorist attempt to bring down a passenger jet. Although when they were in power and so-called shoe-bomber was likewise taken into custody, they said nothing about handing him over to the federal judicial system, now that President Obama is in office it just is not good enough. They want him sent to a military tribunal, or the nearly defunct Guantanamo Bay, where authorities can squeeze more information out of him. Another way to say torture. After all the controversy against torture as being un-American, they still advocate for it.
    By raising this issue, they inadvertently did me a favor. By instantly and openly reverting to an Inquisition mindset, they are helping me prove that conservatism is pre-American. It goes right back to the worst aspects of the Middle Ages, when one's loyalty was to one's lord, no matter how ruthless and unfair he might be, and to a church modeled on secular aristocracy. Loyalty to ideals and to conscience do not come easily to someone who has neither ideals nor conscience.
    In the past few years, as they constantly show disrespect for our Constitutional government, disrupting Town Hall discourse, refusing to act as statesmen in their partisan stance of "just say no," and embrace of torture, these conservatives are showing who they really are. And it has nothing to do with the vision that our founders articulated.
    Whereas the founders built a nation based on reason and courage and respect for the individual, conservatives spread irrational fear and would make angry clones of the entire populace. The human rights that the founders held so sacred, today's conservatives easily deride and discard at a whim. When I think of the abject cowardice of objecting to bring Guantanamo prisoners to a maximum security facility in the heartland of America, it makes me ill. I have to remind myself that these conservatives remnants of an age based more on superstition than fact, one that can deny global warming for no other reason then it suits them to oppose everything that the modern world has to face. Talk about medieval, they would tear down the wall of separation between church and state that Thomas Jefferson described and establish a theocracy if they could.
    Good friends, we have to see conservatism for the threat that it is, and challenge its premise at every opportunity. The challenges cannot be superficial, however, for that merely strengthens their resolve. They seek enemies to sustain paranoia. We have to question them to the point where they have to admit their pre-American biases, thereby showing how little their rhetoric has to do with real patriotism.

December 22, 2009

Senator Tom Coburn asked his loyal tea baggers, good Christians all, no doubt, to pray for one of the Democratic senators not to appear for the vote on healthcare reform. With Senator Byrd seriously ill, perhaps he was hoping to score some points for his twisted, soulless, antithetical, bastadization of Christianity if Byrd died or was hospitalized. It would have seemed like a miracle to his wide-eyed legion of ditto-heads. Senator Coburn, I would like to point out to you that the god you worship is certainly not the God of our founders. Just as people like you are unable to understand the heart of our democracy, you are unable to comprehend the message of Jesus.
    I understand that you have been brainwashed to think like a throwback conservative, but there may be hope for you yet. Please resign and go back to school. Preferably a liberal school. There you will learn that the world is a beautiful place to live on, worth protecting, and that patriotism means standing up for the good of our people, not some crazed ideology rooted in division and selfishness.
    Although you truly disgust me, I will show you a proper Christian response.
    May God forgive you and show you a better way. May he open your eyes to the sickness of crass conservatism and heal your soul. And what the hell. May he also remove you from office before you do any more harm to real American ideals.
    Thank you, and so many like you, for proving how debased and really sick conservatism really is.

December 21, 2009

In my writing, I often use the word un-American in reference to today's conservatism, their beliefs and actions. This may seem harsh, since there are many Americans who believe in, support and advocate for conservative ideas. If a significant number of Americans consider themselves conservative, how could I possibly conclude it to be un-American?
    They claim to be patriots, even as they work hard to divide the nation and find ways of denying others civil rights. They wave the flag as if to prove it, although if you look around the world, flag waving is more a sign of nationalism than Americanism. They repeatedly point to the Constitution as their authority, just as they point to the bible, clinging to bits and pieces taken out of context, confident that their audience will not look into the matter sufficiently to criticize them. When they speak of the Constitution, they usually mean no more than two or three of its amendments, taken out of context. Even their idea of tradition is telling. As much as they hold onto it, their traditions hearken back to times when American ideals had yet to be proclaimed.
    With all this in mind, I would like to point out that today's conservatism, with its stagnating, so-called loyal opposition, tea party propaganda, religious fanatics, and extremists with their guns and bombs and self-declared militias, is not just un-American, it is pre-American. It reflects some of the confused colonial chatter that existed before and during the revolutionary war, when states wanted to considered themselves sovereign nations, and religious persecution was still significant. When they proclaim the Constitution, with its consolidation and cautious definition of a powerful federal government, they are really referring to the residual memory of the Articles of Confederation, which the Constitution replaced. A weak federal government was really making a mess of things. To save the union, it had to be replaced by something stronger, something that superseded regional prejudices, or so George Washington and many other of the founders explained.
    There was resistance to the rising American dream of equality. There were factions that defended slavery and religious intolerance.
    Today's militant conservative often quotes Thomas Jefferson's remarks about rebellion, and refreshing the tree of liberty with "the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is their natural manure." What they conveniently forget (and they conveniently forget a lot of important facts) is that Thomas Jefferson was the most liberal, radical thinker of all our founding fathers. He was not referring to going back to another age. He was referring to fighting for the ideals of the Enlightenment which the new nation was built upon that would replace the previous age. Just as they try to paint liberalism as being a Nazi philosophy, they forget that Hitler was trying to resurrect the pagan past and nationalistic pride of Germany. He was a conservative. One need only ask American Nazis who they vote for to see their political predilections.
    Conservatives say they fight for freedom, but their actions speak louder than words. They would regulate sexual behavior, deny people rights, assert state religion, remove science and liberal education from our schools, and make philosophical clones of us all.
    Looking back in history, one sees where this originated. In the Puritan and Anglican religions that dominated Colonial America before the Revolutionary War. It is pre-American. The struggle that Adams, Washington, Jefferson and Madison so fought for continues today, but liberals have yet to acknowledge its context. Conservatives have. As Tom Delay so often stated, what we are experiencing is an ideological war. The trouble is, most of the nation does not recognize that. But conservatives do. Just listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck sometimes when your stomach can take it. We are at war, and they are pushing things ever more closer to insanity and violence. Timothy McVeigh was the most obvious example, but yahoos bringing guns to political events send us all a clear message.
    It is time for moderates and liberals to loudly speak out for what America is all about. We must not allow conservatives to deny us meaningful healthcare reform just to make sure that America does not move forward with the times.

December 18, 2009

I am amazed at how blatantly conservatives show their true colors, their un-American intent, and the rest of us sit back watching as they sabotage the system. We saw first hand how they got us into Iraq, and how they took victory out of our hands in Afghanistan. We witnessed how their de-regulation ruined our economy, and how they would tear down the wall that separates church from state. We saw how they insulted our allies and refused to negotiate with our enemies. We've seen scandal after scandal revealing their hypocrisy. We've seen them attack Social Security and Medicare, and then make believe they support it.
    We cannot think that their ignorant fanaticism is harmless. When will we actively reveal them for who they are and reject what they are doing?
    See Showing their True Colors for more.

December 17, 2009

As we watch the sad decline of healthcare reform, we are reminded of how insidious conservatism is. By use of lies, misbegotten anger, rabble rousing, and all kinds of sabotage, they have harmed the good of this nation once again, and for reasons of greed and archaic ideology. That the United States has to be held back by such people, when it can be so much greater, is a shame beyond human expression. I might say I was ashamed to be an American today, but that would recognize mean-spirited conservatives as Americans, and that I cannot do. They have stolen away our dignity and compassion and given us clichés in exchange.
    They are hoping that the failure of healthcare reform will hurt liberals in the next elections. It is my hope that the American people see who really killed it, conservatives on both sides of the aisle. To reward them for wrongdoing would be the greatest mistake. And yet this is what conservatives are counting on. Their opinion of the American people is so low and tawdry, that they feel they can manipulate public opinion with no regard for truth and still come out on top. They won't remain there, of course. George Bush proved that when he showed what conservatism really is, and the disaster it produces. How is it the people so esily forget?
    The question is, will we be fooled once again by these despicable strategies? Or will reason and conscience prevail?
    One thing haunts me. The knowledge that their foul strategies often work. That America considers today's demonic version of conservatism legitimate allows them to make fools of us all.

December 15, 2009

American conservatism is no longer a benign concern for wisdom of the past, and a preserving tradition for the future. It can now be described as an assault on humanity, dragging its followers into paranoia and a distrust of human reason, steeped in falsehoods and rising militancy that threatens democracy itself.
    Liberals have become the standard-bearers of American ideals almost be default. They still extend respect to conservatives, even as that respect is never reciprocated. They still reach out for bipartisanship, while conservatives shout them down at Town Hall meetings, and shamefully bring guns in order to intimidate their fellow citizens.
    Tea Party demonstrator paint Hitler mustaches on Obama pictures, knowing full well that American Nazis, and their White Supremacists and KKK clones would never support liberal politics. Like that terrorist murderer Tim McVeigh, they are all conservatives who prefer conservative fascism to our government of the people.
    Conservatives do not believe in equality and equal rights. In my book, that makes them un-American from the start.
    The ignorance they propagate, however, should not be taken lightly. They are masters of subterfuge and sabotage. Liberals shake their heads when they hear conservative propaganda, assuming that no one with half a brain will believe it. But a significant percentage do. Right now, they are successfully playing the liberal extreme like a fiddle, so that liberals are fighting among themselves, right into conservative hands. All the conservatives have to do right now is wait and watch liberalism self-destruct. How else can they win back power? They have nothing positive to offer.
    You think they have no power? Consider how they have destroyed healthcare reform, and blamed it on liberals. We have to open our eyes!
    As liberals fail to be realistic, and to support Obama in the tremendous challenges he faces; as they expect change to happen overnight, and throw tantrums when it does not happen; as the president watches his support dwindle and his allies attack him, conservatism will spit through the cracks and prove to the world that liberalism simply does not work. They will gain seats in Congress, and pose a formidable challenge to the presidency.
    And then what? Heil Sarah Palin? (Remember, the conservative moderate John McCain brought her into prominance.) If you don't think it possible, I didn't think George W. could ever become president either. And he did. Twice.
    Wake up liberals! Now is you chance to speak out for reason. If you think the Bush administration was bad, it could very well get worse.
    Never have we been so threatened.

December 10, 2009

Well, it looks like conservatives will have their way with the Public Option. It has been whittled down to almost nothing, and looks like it may be discarded altogether. Best of all, conservatives now feel smug that the liberals will get blamed for it.
     This may backfire on them. They assume that their talking points will divert the truth reign supreme, as they often do. The fact that the majority want a viable Public Option, and have seen who supported it and who did everything to prevent it, does not seem to worry them. They are confident in the power of deception, which has been their mainstay for quite some time.
     Nevertheless, when medical insurance premiums start to rise, and people remember the Public Option that conservatives ruined, will it really be liberals who become the target of their discontent? Of course, they probably feel that by not voting for any health care package, they will not be held accountable. But this time, with 24 hour news coverage providing a constant reminder, reiterating the echo of death panels and other such lies, the people will remember indeed who sabotaged the process. They may even decide that they want more liberals in office so that the conservative sabotage has less effect.
     On the plus side, given time, expanding Medicare may actually produce the single payer system that conservatives really abhor, but feel compelled not to deride. Medicare, the sacred cow that conservatives wish they could eliminate, but its popularity prevents them. They would have done far better with a small public option, but that seems water under the bridge. Conservatives should be more careful. They may get exactly what they want, and find out that they don't want it. This sacred cows may become their albatross.
     And then there is Sarah Palin-that constant reminder of how irrational and self-defeating conservative politics can be. Why choose the best, when the worst is right at hand?
     Now that Sarah has figured out which newspapers she's been reading, she feels capable of deciding that global warming is a hoax. All those scientists were wrong, and the mobilization of world governments to fight global warming is really for nothing. So says Sarah Palin. And she has a book published, so it must be true. Her credentials are also bolstered by being a failed governor of Alaska, a beauty contestant, and the vice-presidential candidate who ruined John McCain's run for the executive office. I'm not sure how environmental science fits in there, but I suppose it does.
     It goes to show that conservative extremists, the ones who feel that science and intelligence are existential threats to us all, will have their wacky leaders and forever remain outside the mainstream. Their plot, of course, is to bring others out of the mainstream and into their wacky corner-and this is a plot we must be wary of. Appealing to the worst of people weaknesses has ruined nations before.

December 9, 2009

When I see how the media takes what someone says and twists them to mean something else in order to foment controversy, it truly sickens me.
     Liberals have been guilty of this in the past, almost as much as conservatives.
     Yesterday, Senator Harry Reid made comparisons of the tactics used by Republicans against healthcare reform to those used against slavery, equal rights for women, Social Security and Medicare.
     He did not compare healthcare reform to slavery. He compared political tactics. Anyone who listened to him, even in sound bites, understood this.
     So what do they do? They tell us he said something different, and with such feigned outrage that a certain portion of the population will do doubt believe it.
     Alice and Wonderland lives on!
     He did not say that Republicans fought to defend slavery. That would be completely unhistorical. Neither did he say that all Republicans fought against Civil Rights or Social Security.
     Things have changed, of course. For today's Republican to hide behind Republicans of the past, whose values they judiciously pushed out from their party, is ridiculous.
     During the Civil Rights era, which the Democratic Party took the lead on, there was a large migration of southern democrats who were against equality (a fundamental American principle as old as the Declaration of Independence) into the Republican Party. They have been taking it over ever since, and yes, they do carry an echo from the past that fought to keep slavery and prevent equal rights and Social Security and Medicare. In fact, they carry it proudly, and are, quite frankly, an embarrassment to everything that America is supposed to stand for. To listen to them speak in Congress is truly frightening. I believe they represent the greatest internal threat that this nation faces.
     Thank you, Senator Reid, for pointing this out. May I suggest you explain it in more detail so that the people understand what is going on?

December 5, 2009

President Obama's Afghan surge has raised controversy that needs our attention.
     The truth is, however, that the answers we search for are not easily come by. Conservative policies of the past have messed up everything.
     Please see The Afghan Surge for my latest commentary.

December 2, 2009

Although conservatives talk a lot about American ideals and patriotism, love of flag and country, even from the perspective of a single step back shows how empty their words are.
     How can you call yourself a true American who loves American ideals if you do not believe in equal rights for all? Their attitudes toward minorities in the past and sexual orientation in the present throws what is best and most inspiring in the Declaration of Independence out the window.
     Their attack on science, their portrayal of intelligence as elitism, their incredibly dishonest, negative and subversive political strategies, partisan to the point of excluding over half of their fellow citizens, would shame our highly intelligent, honest, forward thinking founders as the opposite of what they intended.
     Conservatism is in fact the ideological refuge of those who disdain American ideals, who attack them viciously by any means they can. They are cowards who not only want to avoid the responsibilities that came from the American Enlightenment movement of 1776, they want to stop others as well.
     I suggest that liberals and moderates fortify themselves against conservatism by reading and studying our founding documents very carefully. That conservatives claim ownership of them only works to obscure their meaning and prevent the real beneficiaries of 1776 their rightful inheritance.

November 20, 2009

It seems that the grand strategy of the Republican Party, at the national level at least, is to make cowards of us all.
     Conspiracy theories generated at every corner, death panels, a frenzy over the census putting people into concentration camps, equating everything liberal as a communist or socialist and sometimes even a Nazi takeover. And now an irrational paranoia about Guantanamo prisoners, and the supposed powerlessness of the most powerful nation in the world to bring them to trial. That we have already successfully tried almost 200 terrorists here. What makes these so different?
     These same complainers show little concern about Iraqi and Afghani prisoners of war who were being held elsewhere and subsequently released-even after being tortured. Surely they are of equal threat, yet we ignore them. It seems that Guantanamo has acquired a certain mystique that elevates these prisoners to level of super villains, that American justice cannot handle. It does well to remember that some of them have already been found innocent and released. So much for placing them there in the first place.
     The truth is that many Americans, conservatives mostly, are having trouble facing the guilt associated with Guantanamo, and are generating irrational fears to justify its existence. They would keep these prisoners there forever, unlike any other previous enemy combatants-preferably forgotten.
     But we have already earned the ridicule of the world for building this place. Our system of justice has been circumvented, and therefore damaged. The Muslim world holds us in contempt because of it. It seems our only reasons for keeping it, other than damaging this president who wants it closed, are to assuage conservative guilt and keep our people afraid.
     Watching Glenn Beck shake and cry on television (for millions of dollars) is the new conservative ideal. Perhaps the reason they are so hawkish is because they are so scared. This does not say much about who we are as a people. The panicked America.

November 7, 2009

I get so frustrated when I hear conservatives ranting on the news and talk shows. Their half truths, clear illogic and outright falsehoods seem to bend reality itself. They are propagating a disease that is infecting our nation with discontent based on their own misconceptions.
     They want to take their contry back. Where has it gone? Where is the socialism and communism they claim has stolen it away? Where are the huge taxes that they claim the new administration has put into effect? How has Obama stolen any oft heir freedom? He has not even taken away their right to torture, as evidenced by how they torture us on the news every night with their twisted view of government.
     Is the United States so changed since President Bush left us, that these people truly cannot stand to live here anymore? Perhaps they should move elsewhere. Seems to me I've heard the refrain "America, Love or leave it" a while back. Seems fitting.
     Conservatives are the ones who are sabotaging the nation with their lies and prejudices, not liberals. If you would like to know why, see:
Legitimate Protests? Or Conservative Revenge?

November 3, 2009

Last night I heard some tea party advocate on television proudly state that liberalism is the enemy of America.
     No doubt he is a well-meaning fellow who thinks he is defending his country from some imagined menace. Unfortunately, the prism through which he sees the world is more like a kaleidoscope of jumbled nonsense forming Rorschach images to his brainwashed eyes. He sees only what he imagines, what he has been indoctrinated to think.
     Conservatism puts the boogie man into everything they see. This is understandable, seeing the self-righteous, loud mouth boogie men who lead them all the time. But surely this is symptomatic of something more serious and delusional. These are, after all, adults. They should have more respect for truth, and the ability to judge right from wrong, not gather anything they feel is liberal into a barrel and light the fuse, while disregarding their own hypocrisy.
     Conservatives have a long history of stubbornly fighting for wrong causes, dating back to circling the wagons over the slavery issue. They resisted the creation of Social Security, Medicare, and civil rights legislation. Their hypocrisy is thick. The very things they were against, and still manage to swipe at now and then, they say they support around election time. Their heavy hitters, people like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, don't trust science and educated people. One has to wonder who they do trust. The American people? Hardly, judging by what they say. Only their own neurotic core.
     I suggest that today's extreme right is not so much a political ideology, i.e., the Party of No, so much as it is a political pathology of unwarranted fear, also known as paranoia, and an inability to see the truth, also known as being psychotic.
     They say they love the Constitution, but then malign the government of the people that it creates. They say they love the American people, yet all we hear from them is distrust, regional hate, and an angry hunkering down with those who share the same irrational fears.
     Liberalism, they say, is the enemy. Why? Because it is the nature of paranoia to need an enemy to focus on and malign. Conservatives are experts at creating such enemies. Community actions groups are equated with the evil Specter of James Bond fame. The desire to provide health care reform becomes a communist plot. Barnie Franks become Doctor Doom. President Obama is painted with a Hitler mustache, although I have never heard of American Nazis supporting anything but conservative causes. Census taking is an insidious plot against conservatives, who fear of being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Healthcare reform is seen as a conspiracy to kill fellow citizens. Protecting the environment for future generations becomes an affront to religion. Their fear of the Taliban fsurprisingly reflects how Taliban-like their views really are.
     If they had any inkling of what America is all about, they would know that we are well capable of providing health care reform without reverting into communism, which we all recognized as a failed ideology, much as today's conservatism is.
     Wake up, conservatives!
     This is America, not the peasantry of early twentieth century Russia or China. The roots of socialism are not part of who we are. Liberalism is nothing more than the desire to maximize freedom for all our citizens, and not allow vast minorities to be oppressed by the few. Is that so unreasonable? Is it a threat to our way of life?
     Liberals! Moderates! All those who value sanity!!!
     Do not fall into complacency because the Republican Party seems to be falling apart. Listen to what they are saying!. They hide it from no one. The far right is regrouping, purifying their madcap ideology so that it appeals only to their energized madcap few. Their town hall stormtroopers. The guys who go around showing their guns. Hitler did much the same thing when he was originally rejected. Conservative think tanks and radio propagandists will do or say anything to manipulate the masses, as we hear every night on television. As they have in the past, they will find ways that will truly threaten our freedom, and call it patriotism.
     We have to be ready. We have to know what we, as real Americans, stand for in the coming onslaught of the irrational.

October 31, 2009

I was just reading an excellent little book by Joseph J. Ellis, entitled Founding Brothers. Not halfway through it yet, and I find myself feeling humble reverence toward the very human leaders who founded the United States. I find it amazing that so many of them shared the same time period and were able to create a government of, by and for the people. I look around me for such intelligent, self-disciplined, visionaries now.
     What do I find in their stead?
     Loud mouthed demagogues like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and a host of other charlatans who dare pervert American patriotism with their nonesensical extremist views that really have nothing to do with what our founders brought into fruition. Why else would they complain so much about the government that the founders created? Why else would they preach some madcap version of the Constitution that simply does not exist? I wish someone would hold them accountable for their lies and shame them publically.
     The truth is, today's conservatism is a mockery of what our founders created, given to the mob mentality, gun-toting riffraff that our founders feared and tried to contain. They thrive on emotionalism and ignorance, hardly the careful, methodical thinking of James Madison, or the idealism of Thomas Jefferson.
     I am thrilled thatPresident Obama has the backbone to publically recognize Fox News for the abomination that it is, and not validating them with the respect that is due legitimate reporting. The clearest weapon we have toward the extreme maliciousness and ignorance of the Right is to not validate it anymore, to treat it like the embarrassment to humanity that it is. We must never allow them to stop us from turning global warming around, making the world a safer place, and winning the terrorist war with an ideology so pure that the terrorists can no longer condemn it. We need intelligent leaders to represent the intelligence of Americanism, not the Michele Bachmans and her ilk, who feed upon prejudice and half-baked ideas.
     I hope more leaders of quality like Barack Obama stand up for America. It is our only hope for the future.

Postcript: Senator Joe Lieberman, with his stand against the public option, is a sorry disapppointment to democracy, and is failing to represent the well-meaning citizens of Connecticut. He should be impeached.

October 24, 2009

I am somewhat surprised by the recent debate over the President's new attitude of treating Fox News as if it were not a legitimate news channel. They tend to think this is a political mistake. Some infer that he is just picking on them because they represent a different point of view.
     I see it very differently. I applaud President Obama's actions. They were long overdue, and deserve the praise of all people who respect truth.
     This was not about honest political differences or preventing honest debate. It was about subverting our democracy by purposely spreading lies. Birthers, death panels, ridiculous conspiracy theories, lies about global warming, an army of propagandists, some verging on the insane, willing to say anything to mislead gullible citizens, Fox has made a mockery of freedom of speech by turning it into the freedom to lie. They do this for money. Lots of it.
     Why should the administration support such a thing? Why should they legitimize such an enemy by treating it as they would the press?
     I wish these pundits would consider for a moment how important truth is to a free people. It is truly a matter of life and death. If we had had the unvarnished truth, we would never have invaded Iraq, and many thousands of people now dead would be alive. If conservative extremists have their way and cripple healthcare reform, thousands more will die that did not have to. Their so-called concern about the unborn is cheapened and vilified for their obvious disregard for the living-all blatant hypocrisy, appealing to regional prejudices and stubborn pride. America was supposed to be more than that.
     President Obama, I think you for calling our Fox for the propaganda machine it is. Liars and saboteurs do not deserve respect. The American certainly deserve better.
     I only wish that the defenders of truth were not so timid in the face of this enemy. Freedom of speech goes both ways.

October 22, 2009

I was watching Chris Matthews' Hardball a few nights ago, and the topic was raised concerning racism being the driving force of conservative hatred for President Obama. Jimmy Carter had suggested as much, but his comments were downplayed because of a prevalent dislike of accusing anyone of being racist.
     I think that President Carter was right, but in a sense that he failed to communicate. It is not present day racism that drives these extremists, but the remaining mindset that the defense of slavery once brought about. A subtle but important difference that needs to be recognized.
     This mindset makes it possible for all the lunacy we are witnessing in the extreme right, from distrust of intelligence to rejection of civil discourse, to a preference for what is false as long as it supports a certain point of view. It even explains the strange twists in the southern view of Christian doctrine, and the United States Constitution.
     For more information, read Pay Dirt.

October 12, 2009

Fox News Sunday had Steven Wynn, casino tycoon, and Governor Jennifer Grenholm, among others, discussing the state of the American economy. How Wynn got into this circle is beyond me, but he made his closed minded conservative points as expected. I presume we were supposed to respect his opinions because of his wealth and success.
     He came out with one of those conservative statements that sounds so strong and true, but made no sense at all.
     He loudly and clearly stated that "government never produced a single job."
     Governor Grenholm politly responded that his statement was too simplistic. Typical liberal being kind and courteous to a typical conservative bulldozer.
     Allow me to be less so.
     He statement was blatantly ridiculous, and I cannot understand how no one properly responded. Conservative intimidation, I presume. Well, we should be sick of that, seeing where it's gotten us.
     Not a single job, he said. Tell that to the millions who are unemployed by federal, state and local government, who keep our streets paved and our children educated. Tell that to the military who keep our nation safe so that people like Steve Wynn can make his millions of dollars catering to vice that is considered illegal in most of the country. Tell that to government contractors, and the contractors who depend on them.
     Mr. Wynn dared to take a holier than thou attitude when he stated that he never had to lay any of his thousands of his employees off from work. Catering to human weakness is indeed lucrative, as drug attics and brothel madams will tell you. But what of those who have lost their life savings to assuage his greed? Or neglected their children or parents? How many lives has your greed completely destroyed?
     I suppose he never received any tax breaks or government help in his life. He infers as much. I guess that is enough to close his mind to the rest of world. Perhaps his idea of boosting the economy is for everyone to start a casino? That would produce, well, nothing but the most extreme poverty.
     Well, I should not be surprised that they brought in someone like Steven Wynn. No doubt Sean Hannity is pleased at another strong voice for conservatism! They still manage to give Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich hero welcomes, after all their scandals and purposely dividing the nation.
     Now we have to listen to moral advice from casino barons who live off of gambling?

October 4, 2009

I recently read an online article about 3 single night robberies in Hartford, in which one person was wounded by a gun.
     After the article, comments were solicited. One of two comments, written by the screen name "The-Resistance," came as this:

I suppose you liberals will now start calling for "gun control" - taking guns away from innocent, law-abiding citizens while letting criminals keep theirs.

This is a perfect example of how the conservative mind is always provoking a fight, when none is called for. They are hunting for liberals to contend with. In the case of gun fanatics, I can understand how their phallic insecurity pushes them to do this, but the fact is that most of the offensive comments purported to come from liberals are really generated in the imaginations of conservatives itching for a fight. I imagine that they listen to Rush Limbaugh so much that the "rush" of peak paranoia brings this about.
     In a sense, they are fighting with the liberal echo in their heads implanted by conservative radio. They see enemies everywhere, and literally conjure them at every opportunity to justify their baseless anger.
     Imaginary liberals storming the gates! Liberals stealing our guns! Communist sympathizers everywhere! Forced abortions! Death panels! Olympic conspiracies! War against Christianity!
     So, where exactly are these armies of liberals?
     Conservatives scour everything trying to find even a hint of threat that justifies their paranoia, and then blow them out of proportion. That's what paranoids do.
     Even the writer's screen name, "The Resistance," conjures French freedom fighters during the German occupation. When they accuse President Obama of being a Nazi, their twisted minds actually believe it. They are trying to will it so.
     We have to be careful dealing with these people. One might want to therapeutically humor them, but that's dangerous too. The Oklahoma Bombing and a long history of lynching innocent people really happened, and we can see the lunacy fermenting today.
     People like Glenn Beck make millions of dollars generating this evil discontent. Beck made an estimate of 24 million just last year. That's enough to bring the fake tears and craziness out of many people who are unscrupulous. It's too bad so many fall prey to it.

October 2, 2009

We live in a contentious society.
     Instead of fixing problems in a civilized manner, we prefer to complain and take sides, instigate rumors and demean those who disagree with us, despite their intent or the validity of their point. Them and us. This easily degenerates to good guys and bad guys.
     The result? Our problems continue forever, while tabloid-style, media propagandists, sowing discord, rake in millions of dollars. We end up distrusting our own people, along with the representatives that we put into office. Political parties define themselves by artificial causes, and attack each other as if they were at war. It reminds of what some Age of Enlightenment philosopher once said. When freedom of thought is not utilized, people demand freedom of speech to compensate.
     Such a mindset is devastating not only to democracy, but to our everyday lives. We become followers instead of individuals. Civility falters leading to unwarranted paranoia. When untruth becomes acceptable, our ability to reason properly is damaged. Wong people become leaders. Bigotry hardens. Ideals degenerate into talking points that are easily misused.
     After a while, all that remains is one-upmanship, and truth is the casualty. Once that happens, we lose the essence of what we were: respecters of truth and logic, hard working problem-solvers, building a better world for everyone to enjoy.
     I welcome Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's comments rejecting the birther movement and Glenn Beck. It is my hope that they serve as a catalyst for resurrecting a more respectable form of conservatism, one based on reason, honesty and maximising freedom.

October 1, 2009

The last national election sent what liberals considered to be a clear message. The electorate had learned their lesson, and rejected the insanity of right wing conservatism. After 8 years of George W. Bush, a deregulated economy that was tanking, two wars that were draining our coffers for negligible results, a poor response from FEMA in regards to Hurricane Katrina, a loss of prestige and even respect from many nations around the world, grand scale Republican corruption and hypocrisy in Congress, an inflating federal government, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the nomination of Sarah Palin, Bush’s female clone, to the vice presidency, was surely a wake up call that no one could miss. Conservatism had finally been defeated, or rather, it self-destructed by showing what it really stood for.
     In response, the bruised and beaten Republican Party seemed unable to fix things. They offered nothing that might suggest that they could do better. In fact, they took just the opposite stand. They became the party of Rush Limbaugh and his latest competitor, Glenn Beck.
     Liberals cheered. As conservatives daily proved themselves out of touch with reality, it seemed as if they could be ignored. Nothing stood in the way.
     But their cheering was premature. They forgot that although President Obama may have had a landslide in the electoral collage, his margin for winning the popular vote was quite slim. What seemed a defeated, irrational response by the Republican Party, so easy to ignore as ridiculous, was building support among those who believe in conspiracy theories and the demonic evil of a democratic government. What liberals and moderates and those who think that America is first and foremost about truth failed to realize is that there are a lot of Americans who fall into this camp. As the irrational often are, they can be very vocal and even threatening. While the rest of the world remembers communism as a failed historical phenomenon, these people see communists under every stone, and are ready to accuse anyone they don’t like of being one.
     This is a sad state of affairs. Our nation was built on reason. Our founders wanted freedom to offer the kind of environment in which reason would thrive. Freedom itself could go either way, and it obviously has judging by the talk of today’s diehard conservative, who feels his country has been stolen away from him, even though not much has changed in his everyday life since Obama took charge. In fact, the nation has improved considerably. The Great Recession is waning, national tensions have been reduced, and medical reform is still being considered, despite conservative road blocks and noncooperation.
     Somehow, all these achievements are seen as bad to conservatives. All the failures of the Bush administration, including serious Constitutional threat to our liberties, meant nothing to them. They would rather see the nation fail completely then accept the will of the majority who voted a liberal into office.
     Insane? Yes. Nonetheless, enough people believe this, and are fired up by conservative radio and television propaganda, to cause trouble. In fact, one might say that the insanity is dangerously growing by leaps and bounds.
     The United States is too large and powerful a nation to be given sway to such a non-rational ideology. Paranoia brings out the worst from all of us, and that means we are losing what is best of who we are. When truth becomes expendable for political gain, or we surrender the wisdom of our culture in order to exploit the fears of ignorance, the United States becomes a sham of what it was supposed to be. It will be the enemy within that destroys us, and that enemy is conservatism as it has deteriorated today.

September 29, 2009

MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow asked a very pertinent question last night. How does one debate the issues with people who are undeterred when their points and charges are disproved? She was referring to the right wing of the Republican Party which has taken over its base completely. Such tabloid conservatives are so entrenched in conspiracy theories, paranoia and hate, that they cannot be reasoned with. In fact, they don't trust reason. People of of intelligence are considered elitists!
     One wonders what is left to think with? The rumor mill of conservative think tanks? The gospel of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? The death panels fantasies of Sarah Palin? Michele Bachman's fear of census workers? The imminent rise of communism that simple healthcare reform threatens to bring? Or does it all come down to bulets and guns? The rightness of a cause no longer matters.
     The sad thing is, the Republican Party, at least on the national organization, has become the what John Stuart Mill once described as the stupid party, catering to the paranoid and those who have no interest in truth.
     This is a loss for us all. The conservatives used to safeguard what was best from our past traditions. Now they want to save what was worts. They once sought to slow change down so that it change could be done right. Now they want to stop change completely, even as the world races ahead of us.
     To conservatives who still care about truth and the health of this country, please take back your control. Lunacy is nothing to play with when it comes to political power. It is time to rescue the Republican Party, before it is too late.

September 26, 2009

While pondering, with my usual incredulousness, antics of conservative politics, I happned to find a very illuminating article written by Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, that explains the Republican tactics of playing to people's paranoia.
     I placed an article about this, along with quotes, that should open the eyes of the rest of us. See Call it What it is.

September 25, 2009

A Census field worker was hanged in Clay Countty in Kentucky. the word "Fed" written across his chest.
     Should we be surprised by this, when right wing propagandists like Glenn Beck has long been calling for revolution? And Right wing fanatics bring automatic rifles and pistols to presidential gatherings? And Michele Bachman tells the population not to cooperate with the US Census, for fear that they will be rounded up and placed in concentration camps? The voices of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and countless othershave long fueled this kind of paranoia for profit as well, setting the stage for murder.
     I hold the GOP responsible for this murder, and for promoting an unwaranted spirit of malevelence and violence that once prompted Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Federal building in Oklahoma.
     When is this insanity going to stop?

September 16, 2009

Studying political history can be very eye opening.
     Capitalism came about from the liberal tendencies of the Age of Reason. It was disliked by conservatives, who felt that the greed it would generate would be adverse to virtue. They also preferred substantive farming and feudalism before that. As capitalism proved lucrative, and raised the personal wealth of the population, they decided to ally themselves with it, and continue to do so, fiercely, even to this day.
     Their concerns about greed were justified, however. The liberalism that introduced it now points that out. Conservatives condemn them as socialists and communists because of it, forgetting their own virtue-centric ideology, for an ideology that is obviously based on something else.
     So, the liberals who introduced capitalism as a good idea, are now taking the original conservative stance after seeing the weaknesses of this economic system. Conservatives continue to back it, even though it has led to one recession after another and, if not for desperate measures (which conservatives condemn), would have destroyed our entire economy.
     This sheds light on the changeable, unreliable, and even contradictory values of conservatism. Their talk of virtue only goes so far. Liberalism was able to admit when it was wrong, and sought redress. Conservatism would let the entire ship sink, as long as certain people, mostly corporate elites, benefit. They are not so interested in tradition, as in particular traditions that support their profit over others.

September 16, 2009

The American people are not and never will be socialists, as much as some people would like to believe to feed ignorant paranoia. As caring patriots who love their country, which means their fellow citizens, the majority of them want universal health coverage. The Constitution allows this, because it clearly empowers Congress to promote the general welfare of the people. The efforts of President Obama and his supporters are therefore working within the system as it was written by our founders. It is not socialism, a bugaboo word intended to resurrect anti-communist paranoia. Communism is dead. It no longer threatens anyone. It failed miserably in the last century, and fails to present an empty rallying cry for a serious democracy.

September 15, 2009

If liberals wanted to fight fire with fire, they could start making up outrageous lies about conservatives too. How else do you compete with death panels and all the rest?
     For example, they could claim that if the Republicans kill healthcare reform, their next target will be Medicare and then Social Security.
     Actually, a lot of conservatives would like to do just that, so it really isn't so great of a lie.
     How about their wanting to get rid of all safety net programs and reinstitute work houses?
     Ouch. That's kind of right up their alley too.
     Here we go. Once Social Security is gone, they will reinstitute slavery for the elderly, so that corporations can make a profit on them.
     Or medical insurance can be given freely in exchange for medical experimentation? Or signing away your organs to specific CEOs?
     How is it that when I write these ridiculous ideas they don't seem quite outside the realm of conservative possibility.
     Better stop now. This is scaring me.

September 14, 2009

When I listen to conservative extremists on radio and television, and they talk about the United States being taken over by socialists or communists, or fascists, it really makes me worry about the mental health of our country.
     I can understand, although not respect, how Republicans profit from stirring anger and paranoia, and playing to ignorance and bigotry. For short term gain, however, they have lost their integrity and placed their party into the hands of aggressive fanatics who fail to see the world as it really is.
     They worry and spread irrational fears about communism when the entire world has rejected communism as unworkable and easily given to totalitarianism. Perhaps they missed the demise of the Berlin Wall? And China's Embrace of capitalism?
     As for socialism, Europe has proved that various degrees of socialism can been quite benign, and not the treat leading to communism that was long predicted. England, for instance, has leaned heavily toward socialism in the past, and then back toward free enterprise under Margaret Thatcher, without the world falling down.
     I am not advocating for socialism. In fact, I am pointing out that socialism is not the American way, and never will be. For that very reason, we have nothing to fear from it. Right extremists are merely using this as a familiar rallying point to foment an ideological revolution. This did not work well during the McCarthy years, when socialism did have a small minority of vocal advocates in this country, why should it work now? Fear of ghosts?
     As for fascism, the charge is ridiculous. The United States Constitution is alive and well. We still have three braches of government, two of which are made up of our elected representatives. President Obama has in no way abused his executive power. In fact, he insisted that Congress write the healthcare reform bill, as is their duty, in order to be sure that he did not extend his authority. He has gone to costly extremes to save our capitalist economy with stimulus money and bringing back much needed regulation of the market. Without these measures, our capitalist economy would have completely collapsed.
     It seems that conservatives now see the world opposite to what it is, and this is very troubling. They do have a vocal influence, as evidenced by the recent debacle of town hall meetings in which they did everything they could to disrupt our democratic system. They are upset that President Obama and the Congress just saved our economy. Does that make sense? They don't want Americans to have effective healthcare reform. Why? Because they not only believe that communism is still a threat in this country, but that Americans themselves would create death panels that decide who lives and who dies. On one hand, they say they love this nation. On the other hand, they think it capable of killing its citizens in the name of helping them. So, what are we? Champions of life? Or champions of death?
     By their fruits you shall know them. Look at the placards they carry at protests. Listen to the vitriol of their complaints. Notice the guns that they are carrying to political events. See how they twist everything into something it is not, just to harm fellow Americans who disagree with them. If you examine all these with open eyes, you will see how un-American they really are. We have to uphold real American values if we hope to save our nation from their insanity.

September 13, 2009

The steady and cataclysmic decline of the Republican Party, its endemic corruption, and the detrimental properties of its possible resurgence, present a clear study of what happens when an ideology embraces the approach of having the goals justifies the means.
     In order to gain power it otherwise would never have, the Republican Party purposely wooed factions that are not strictly conservative. For example, the Religious Right is not a conservative faction, despite their rhetoric. They represent a theocracy that wants to impose its values on the entire population, hardly a conservative value meant to maximize freedom and protect the Constitution.
     They encourage Tea Party fanatics who want to spark a revolution that completely disregards the Constitution, other than a couple amendments taken out of context. What is conservative about that?
     What is conservative about disrupting Town Hall meetings to make well-meaning discourse impossible?
     When you embrace lying in order to harm the opposition, you not only sow the seeds of discord, you define yourself as someone who cannot be trusted. That eventually takes its toll on the viability of the party. Intelligent people of good faith turn away. They know that Medicare did not result in socialism, and neither would healthcare reform.
     When Republicans say they want to work for Healthcare reform, and then do nothing but sabotage both it and the American process, we know they are lying. It seems all they bring to the table is negativity. Why? Because their track record shows they know nothing else.
     We've seen all the scandals and corruption that the Republican Party brought with it since Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, followed by the Bush administration. We have not forgotten Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, and all the other scandals. We have not forgotten the deregulations that led to the present economic damage we suffer from. We have not forgotten the tax breaks for the wealthy, given to us by Presidents Reagan and Bush II, that led to our massive deficits.
     We also see whose voices are coarsening public discourse. We see who are raising Hitler signs, shouting "you lie" in the Congress, making up stories of concentration camps and death panels.
     This is the Republican Party we see today. A loosely held together group of fanatics and special interests that are hell bent on disrupting our Constitutional government while denying equal rights for everyone. There is nothing American about that.
     True conservatives of good conscience need to reject the means to power that in the short term brought them to power, and long term to self-destruction, playing on fear and anger and bigotry, rather than the fine ideals that our founders first established.
     This is why I think that conservatism, as it is today, is the greatest threat we have to our nation.

September 2, 2009

What a tremendous act. Conservatives have done their dirtiest best to ruin healthcarte reform and spread fear among the populace, and now sit back in smug judgment of Obama's lowering approval polls.
     I alos love it when they say that Democrats don't need their votes. They have enough of their own in the House and Senate to pass the bill. What does that mean? They have no responsibility to do the right thing? Why don't they just abdocate their offices, instead of being paid by our government just to sabotage much needed policiy?
     It is not bad enough that they have ruined their own reputations, and poisoned the milk of our democracy with deception and outright falsehood, they would poison liberalism too, so that the people would eventually have nothing left but sour disdain and superstition.

September 1, 2009

Convervative extremists are getting more vocal every day. They sound more violent as well. Glenn Beck fanatics constantly try to foment rebellion, right wing militias are getting ready, and a growing minority of people in Texas want to secede from the Union.
     We need to start taking this seriously. Conservatives would destroy everything we hold dear.
     See Conservative Hate.

August 20, 2009

I almost feel bad for these gun toting 2nd Amendment rights proponents who like to make a spectacle of themselves outside presidential town meetings. They walk around thinking they are real Americans because they carry guns, when millions of real Americans feel comfortable enough in their own nation, enjoying the freedom that our Constitution protects, and don't feel the need raise delusional issues that right wing paranoia propagates.
     They almost seem disappointed that they were not arrested or had their security blanket guns taken away from them.
     The mindset reminds me of those conservatives who shout out that they want their country back. Where do they think their country is? How has their life changed since February that they feel such a passionate loss? Was something taken away from them? Can't they buy ammo anymore? Has Rush Limbaugh, their surly prophet for hire, been taken off the airwaves? Have the Obama Gestapo closed down their churches? Has the vote been denied them? I wish they'd grow up.
     What the hell has changed, other than the self control of conservatives who probably aren't taking their proper medication anymore?
     They are fortunate that the rest of us are civilized enough to tolerate them. If they were in control, they would not tolerate us. So much for their respect for the Constitution. But then, I think they read only one or two Amendments.

August 16, 2009

So much of conservative paranoia is based on distrust of the American people. In this nation of freedom, and longtime tradition of independent thinkers, no Marx, Lenin, Stalin, or Hitler could possibly take control. Yet to hear conservatives speak, we are always on the slippery slope to communism. Social Security was supposed to be the ruin of the nation when it was first proposed. Medicare was a brazen attack that would lead to concentration camps. Racial equality was not seen as an affirmation of our beliefs, but as a threat to State sovereignty and a collapse of highly regarded tradition. Women's vote was the end of sensible democracy.
     None of these outrageous claims proved correct. Today's claims that medical reform and universal coverage will lead to a socialist takeover, death panels, euthanasia, insufficient care, and bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor make us all look like fools to the civilized world. It has to stop.
     This is the United States of America, not some cartoon that you make up as you go along.
     Conservatives are telling us not to trust liberals or moderates. They expect us to trust them instead, no matter how much they lie, cheat and swindle. Their power lies in the repetition of cheap clichés. I would much rather trust a government bureaucrat, a representative of the people, with my medical coverage than I would trust an insurance bureaucrat, whose only concern was profit. I've seen up close how Medicaid works in a life-saving capacity, and have seen insurance companies deny my own mother of much need care.
     Conservatives! Just remember one thing. We will remember what you are doing today. The majority of people are seeing through your rhetoric and what it really represents. You may still have a percentage of indoctrinated followers willing to betray the rest of us, but even they will wake up someday when their insurance coverage is denied, or leaves them bankrupt. You could have taken the higher ground out of your patriotic duty, but are not. We will remember.

August 15, 2009

Sham Conservatism.

What disgusts me most about today's conservatism is that it is not conservatism at all. It is pure hypocrisy that does not even try to conceal its bad faith.
     The purpose of conservatism is to preserve what is best about the past, and by that I mean virtue. All one has to do is listen to the lies and deceit regarding our present healthcare debate to see that today's conservatism has abandoned virtue altogether. They will do and say anything to maintain a broken, even disastrous status quo.
     The first time I noticed the hypocrisy of conservatism was back when Dan Quail sought to rally his base by using the term "family values." They were just empty words in light of the attack on the poor that Republicans were waging, and the reduction of taxes that ultimately led to our deficits today. When Ronald Regan before him castigated people on welfare, and judged them as being either worthy or unworthy, I knew that this was a party that had no regard for real virtue, and was willing to play on people's prejudices and divide the nation in order to gain power.
     During my lifetime, we continually see exactly what they hope to preserve. Distrust. Division. Paranoia. Pollution. Dependency on foreign oil. Regional bias. Discrimination. They say they support the Constitution, but they only seem aware of a couple of its amendments, and use them to distort all the rest.
     There was a time when conservatism distrusted capitalism as much as it did communism, and for the same justified reasons: for the assault on virtue that it represented. They are now so entwined with capitalism that they are defined by its greedy, amoral philosophy.
     What bothers me most is their distrust of Americans. They use spook terms like socialism and communism, when anyone with half a brain knows that it is not in the American character to become socialist or communist. George Washington refused to be king. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal brought sanity to the survival of the United States, not a threat to freedom and individual rights. Barack Obama's healthcare reform is a sensible response for the protection of the American people in the twenty-first century. The Chicken Little response of conservatives, with their little faith in the people of America, is scandalous.

August 9, 2009

It is strange how conservatives like to say that the United States is a Christian nation, and then work their hardest to prove quite the opposite. Or perhaps they are just trying to legitimize their own very unchristian-like agenda by changing the teachings of Christ to fit it.
     Last night I saw these far right extremists disrupting a town hall meeting in order to deny millions of Americans health coverage and reform, and one woman held up the bible for the camera, as if God himself were against helping those who need it.
    It boggles the mind how effective the conservative propaganda machine has been, when you see how many so-called conservative Christians see Christ as a hate-spewing, gun toting reflection of themselves. It does not speak well for their ability to read that bible they so hypocritically point at. It does show how ignorance and hate are capable of leading people astray.
    Conservatism was once about preserving the best of the past. It advocated that change has to include who we are as a people.
    Today's conservatism represents the dark side of everything. It neither carries what is best from the past, nor includes the best of who we are as a people. It embraces bigotry instead. A stubborn disregard for reason and truth. A contemptuous disregard for fellow Americans and the world which they somehow translate as patriotism. With every shocking mass murder announced on the news, they want more guns. They see how their deregulation of Wall Street results in a catastrophic recession, and they still want more deregulation. Their so-called Christian morality does not seem to apply to unjust wars and war crimes, and equal rights. They would take science out of science class, and replace it with myth. They would incarcerate someone who burns a flag, while they destroy the high ideals that the flag stands for. Blind guides. Their denunciation of President Obama as some kind of a messiah is only refuted by their mob cries for his political crucifixion.
    Conservatism has lost its soul, and would kill the souls of others in retribution.
    In response to their insane fight against healthcare reform, The Week recently wrote this in their Best columns in Europe section:
    The trouble is, most Americans just don't care about the poor, said Christina Patterson in the London Independent. The have-nots are seen as "failed Americans, Americans who let the side down." That's why it's so hard for the U.S. to enact any kind of reform that might help the less fortunate. "Sure, America's got talent, but it's also got some of the mist unpleasant, uncompassionate, unerringly ruthless people on the face of this planet."
    It is up to us to fight for the high ideals of Americanism — ideals such as truth, justice, reason, creativity, responding to changing times, compassion for one's neighbor, a willingness to sacrifice for the good of all. Conservatism is now the enemy of all this. It is nothing less than demonic in its intent.
    Americans, it is time to speak out against this force of evil, and let the world know that the real dream of America is alive and well, and will not be torn down.

August 8, 2009

From today's perspective, it is hard to believe that many of our nation's founders actually frowned upon democracy. They felt that the majority of people were incapable of making sound political choices. People were too easily influenced by prejudices and factions and the latest fad. They were fickle, easily swayed by passions, and not educated enough to understand important issues. Democracy was equivalent to mob rule.
    Fearing such chaos, they constructed a republic instead. Selected citizens, white, male landowners to be specific, could vote for congressional legislators. That was about it. They could not vote for senators or president. This allowed some immediate representation, while maintaining a proper balance with more appropriate, professional leadership.
    As time went on, however, more democracy was steadily asserted. Senators were soon subjected to popular vote. Suffrage was extended to all adult males, and then to women. We still have an Electoral College that chooses the president, but it is looked upon warily as a quaint institution that should probably be eliminated.
    Our present day republic leans heavily toward being the democracy so dreaded by our founders. Yes, it does occasionally suffer from some of the incoherence and poor judgment that people like John Adams feared, but it manages to get by as is.
    Today's Republicans inherit the meaning of their name, preferring republican principles over democratic involvement. Democrats, likewise, look to place more power in the hands of the people, because they believe in democracy.
    All this in important to understand, because we are now witnessing a phenomenon that would have scandalized old John Adams. Republicans are purposely enlisting rabble-rousers to purposely disrupt town hall meeting around the country in order to sabotage health care reform, making constructive dialog impossible. They are institutionalizing everything that our founders dreaded, and in the name of conservatism. They are enlisting a citizen revolt involving people who do not understand that Medicare is a government run medical insurance, and think that having the option of writing a living will is the same as euthanasia! These same people cannot see a birth certificate when it is right in front of their eyes! These are the new soldiers of the Republican Party. And since they do not really believe in democracy, they feel justified in making sure that they system does not work.
    Hypocritically, Republicans are saying that what we see is really democracy at its best, angry citizens being bused from one town hall to another to disrupt the system and make informative communication impossible. In effect, it is their version of democracy, with confused citizens being played like puppets on a string, lulled into outrage by the propaganda of conservative talk radio. Whereas John Adams doubted that democracy would work, today's Republicans are hell-bent on making sure it fails. Whereas Republican Abraham Lincoln wanted to keep the nation united, today's Republicans want to keep it so divided that no one benefits except their wealthy benefactors.
    The Republican Party is no longer of the sane, measured bloodline of John Adams or Abraham Lincoln. It has no respect for the American system, which it constantly blasphemes. It has no qualms about insulting our government of the people, while sowing distrust and corruption in every direction. It seeks support from any group willing to shout or take away another's civil rights.
    We must resist this sabotage.

July 29, 2009

The Republican Party is now committed to denying the American people universal health coverage. I state this plainly so that we all remember this if and when this project fails completely, or offers some watered down version that makes little difference in people's lives, and somehow makes certain health related corporations that much wealthier.
    Neocon propagandist Bill Crystal, on the Daily Show, expressed conservative sentiments quite distinctly. The American people simply do not deserve universal health coverage.
    Let that sink in a little. We do not deserve it. We are not good enough. Other industrialized nations respect and honor their people enough to provide it for them, but conservatives in the country have decided that we are just not worthy.
    Our soldiers deserve it. They sacrifice a portion of their lives to protect the unworthy masses. While that might seem a little contradictory, after all, what is so great about defending the worthless? Ah, I see. They are also protecting neocons, and safeguarding the investments of wealthy investors — most of whom, I gather, already have their health needs met. Makes sense. So, what good are the rest of us? We provide a source of military manpower, and money of course, as long as we cooperate. When we risk our lives to protect neocons, we suddenly become worthy.
    This nation was founded of, by and for the people. Conservatives seen to have forgotten that. Or perhaps they just set it aside as inconvenient. Talk about elitism! They view themselves as the new aristocracy of the worthy, and the rest of us worthless drones who merely make their comfort and security possible.
    Conservatives do not trust democracy, because they do not trust us. They use every propaganda trick they can find to control their own minions in lockstep discipline, and then appeal to the so-called extremist wing-nuts and their deranged, un-American values of prejudice and blind anger to get what they want.
    It is time we see this for what it is. They bring in 3rd rate leaders to rule us (George W., Dan Quail, Sarah Palin, etc.) because we deserve nothing better. The less we know the more control they have over our lives. If the people fail to be coerced according to their ideology of elitist control, they talk about revolution. Nothing democratic about that.
    The heart of conservatism, dating back to Edmund Burke, has always been that all men are not created equal. This is why conservtives like John Adams feared democracy and did not want universal sufferage. The average citizen, especially women, did not deserve the power to vote. This is why conservatives fought to keep slavery. Black people did not deserve freedom. This is why they treated Native Americans like livestock, stealing their lands and destroying their way of life. This is why they resisted equal rights for minorities, who obviously did not deserve them because they were not part of the social elite. And now we come to universal medical coverage. As Bill Crystal so honestly articulated, we the people are not worthy of that. We are only worthy to send our children into war, and give our money to corporations that have no concern about peace in the world and the health of this planet.
    This is why I say that conservatism is completely un-American. It is our greatest enemy, the viper at our breast. One need only listen to the propaganda of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Make Savage, and all the rest, all loud mouth, soulless conservatives, to see how vile, empty and un-American their ideology really is.
    Wake up America! We need to stand up and prove ourselves worthy, as our founders did before us — and not by cowtowing to a conservative aristocracy that would steal the shirt from your back and call it freedom.

July 23, 2009

The Republicans have finally reverted to their trusty mantra of "slow down" in regards to health care. Even now it almost makes them seem like thoughtful, responsible statesmen. Too bad for them we've seen this act before.
    Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, said it best. The best social change is kind that occurs organically. Sudden change, forced, radical change, can only be destructive.
    It sounds so reasonable. And in the 18th century when Burke lived, perhaps it was.
    Today, however, thanks to technology and a more educated populace, organic change occurs far more rapidly than most of us can keep up with. Slowing down places us in a terrible position of trying to catch up by purposely not proceeding. It simply does not make sense.
    What has conservative slowing down gained us in the past? Slowing down on freeing the slaves led to an expansion of slavery and a Civil War. Slowing down on civil rights led to rioting in the streets. Slowing down on communicating with enemies like Fidel Castro strengthened and emboldened them. Slowing down on energy and environmental concerns, first brought to our attention by President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, has jeopardized our entire planet and placed us in a position of being unable to adequately respond. Even now, conservatives are still fighting environmental and energy change! Slowing down on gay rights makes a joke out of our constitution.
    With a self-righteous track record like that, I don't see why anyone trusts them, least of all themselves! Nevertheless, they are calling us to slow down on health care, while leaking out their real intent — to destroy the democratic majority in favor of their own philosophy of stagnation. These propagators of distrust and insane hysteria, and disdain for intelligent democracy, are fomenting actual rebellion through the likes of Glenn Beck and "tea baggers." "Birthers" refuse to acknowledge the president's birth certificate, preferring to believe that Obama's single parent mother smuggled him into the country and somehow faked the birth certificate that exists, and made newspaper announcements, just because she somehow knew he would run for president someday. Creationists disavow evolution. Extreme right evangelicals want to eliminate the separation of church and state that Jefferson and Madison founded. Egomaniacal propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and so many others, represent the divisive heart of today's conservatism. Truth has no more relevance to this ideology.
    This is the kind of thinking that conservatism stands for nowadays. They would have us slow down on health care in order to stop it entirely and leave us with millions of Americans uninsured.
    They are not our friends in this. It is time we see them for what they are, and ignore them.

July 14, 2009

If you listen to conservatives rant lately, you would think we were living in the end times. A liberal is in office, and Democrats rule both houses in Congress. The sky must be falling, even if it it not.
    Where does all this craziness come from? The nation is certainly on an upswing since conservatives fell from power. President Obama is slowly repair the economy after they nearly condemned us all to poverty. We have good relations with our allies, and are no longer provoking our enemies without good reason. We have a much improved image in the world, and are finally tackling climate change (albeit a little too late). A theocracy has been avoided, and we may actually find a way to provide medical coverage for all our citizens without falling into the dreadfully painted fate of socialism.
    Best of all, we have avoided placing inadequate leaders in the White House. That conservatives feel that politics is all about winning a popularity contest instead of placing the best person in office is well documented in their obsession with both George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. Ronald Reagan was hardly the best choice either, although revision of history has made him seem like a god. Nixon? Enough said.
    Well, the sky is not falling. The economy is turning. Our friends around the world are multiplying and our enemies subtracting. We may yet pull ourselves out of global warming.
    If only convervatives could see the error of their ideology, and how genuinely unreasonable and un-American it really is.

July 13, 2009

What scares me now is how liberal factions are coming out of the woodwork to criticize President Obama for not implementing everything on their liberal agendas in the first 6 months of his presdiency. In a way, they are feeding into the subversive, conservative discontent that is already being generated wherever it can take a foothold.
    They really seem to think that everything can be achieved overnight. Instead of being deeply impressed by his accomplishments so far, they want everything right away. If they are not careful, they will open the door to conservatism's return—with a vengeance.
    Wake up! We need to have a little patience and understadning. President Obama is working on a huge program right now. Universal medical coverage for all Americans. He cannot just do that overnight, and he cannot do it alone, while conservatives and liberals are knocking him down.
    Politics is not easy. I have no doubt that the president has a longterm strategy in place to accomplish his goals. If you remember how President Clinton was unable to get support for universal coverage, and was also castigated for implementing his "don't ask don't tell' policy toward gays in the military, you can see why Obama is prioritizing his focus.
    I think we have to trust his man, and help him in any way we can. We will never see a president like him again, and so we need to change things in the best ways possible so that they really happen and are not destroyed by the next conservative leadership. And remember, the conservative intelligensia is busy plotting ways to take over again. They take a quiet, longterm approach to things, hoping people forget what madness they previously brought about. Then, when things are all in place, and sufficient discontent is in hte air, they attack and take over.
    Let's get universal health care finished first, and then see what happens.

July 11, 2009

Having trouble understanding today's conservatism?
    It does seem that they are purposely doing everything to cripple their own cause. After last year's crushing defeat in congress, one might think that they would be trying to appeal to moderates in order to build popular support. Instead, they are turning to their extremist base and showing how spiteful, prejudiced and unreasonable conservatism really is with their crusade for ignorance and polution.
    Liberals might feel confident enough to ignore them because of this, but only to their own peril. Conservatism is regrouping in ways that are outside the normal means of politics.
    Conservatism is an ideology that comes before politics. Now that they have lost a lot of political power, they are looking at other ways of conquering this nation of over 300 million people. If they cannot win by leading, they will win by subverting. That is their present strategy. Hence their talk about revlution, their denial of climate change, their preferring the entire economy to collapse rather than regulate it back to health.
    What follows are some of the reasons that I believe conservatism is the worst Enemy our Nation Faces

Indictment

• In a world straining on the brink of over-population, conservatives crusade against birth control.
  
• As climate change instigate an incredible upswing of forest fires and other aberrant weather phenomenon, with polar caps shrinking faster than the experts predicted, conservatives deny that the changes are happening. No one is going to convince them differently.
  
• With our planet's fossil fuel reserves both limited and irreplaceable, oil profits funding terrorism, carbon emissions blanketing the earth with greenhouse gases, conservatives resist alternative fuels as being too liberal.
  
• After their efforts to deregulate markets resulted in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, conservatives resist efforts to stimulate the economy, and go so far as to advocate for its complete failure under the insane idea that it will eventually readjust.
  
• Their idea of patriotism includes dividing the nation into regional ideologies, holding equal rights from everyone, removing the separation of church and state that our nation was founded on, and the coarsest political propaganda that is imaginable. Some are calling for a revolution.
  
• They have pretended to represent "family values" while hiding their moral corruptions, as every new Republican scandal demonstrates. Their family values often would deny children in poverty free lunches in school, medical insurance for those who need it, assistance programs for those in need - while thoughtlessly supporting huge corporations that have no need for help.
  
• They have supported and elevated a version of Christianity based on the very opposite of what Jesus taught.
  
• They support political candidates who are obviously inadequate for their jobs.
  
• Our nation was built from the enlightenment of reason. Conservatives would throw reason away as a casualty of war in their denial of science and common sense.

It is well past time that the rest of us see conservatism for what it really is, and open the eyes of those who have been duped by their self-righteous rhetoric. Liberals have to speak out abrout real American ideals, such as equal rights, fairness, human nature, thinking for oneself, protecting our fellow citizens from a whole host of very real and dangerous threats.

July 10, 2009

American Exceptionalism

Is it right to consider the United States exceptional as a nation in the world?
    This question sometimes arises in political discourse. In one respect, it is equivalent to asking "aren't we the greatest?" If you want to be considered a patriot, you'd better answer yes.
    But the question does have value in that it raises the issue not so much of who we think we are, or who we once were, but who we want to be.
     If if promotes the stale thinking of blind national ego that wallows in self-conceit, it loses its value. Indeed, as with all thinkgs based on ego, it becomes a foil to authenticity. And yet this is what conservatives mean by exceptionalism. They refuse to look at our faults and past mistakes, somehow thinking we are better off by doing so. They learn nothing from the past and prevent us from true moral exceptionalism by restraining the self-improvement that would make us exceptional indeed.
    Liberalism, by contrast, despite its faults, is at least more realistically self-evaluating, which makes progressive development possible. It admits mistakes, cares about people's lives, and seeks to improve. To me, these are true American values, and when when applied properly really do make a nation exceptional.
    But this brings us to the heart of exceptionalism. We are only exceptional when we make ourselves such. By exceptional I do not mean annointed by God, but authentic human beings led by worthy ideals.
    Conservatives mayhold that their ideals are worthy. But are they? Resisting change in a world that is constantly and rapidly changing all the time? Preferring small government to good governemt? Catering to a wealthy elite through manipulative propaganda? Going to war for reasons of pride and avarice? Resisting equal rights? Rejecting science? Polluting the world just out of political stubbornness? Favoring certain religions over others just for the votes that would bring? Destroying our economy and then blaming those who would repair it? Replacing failed policies with more of the same?
    We become exceptional not by wishing or saying it, but when we make ourselves exceptional—each and every one of us . When we wield power with reason and compassion. When we see the world as it is rather than how a dysfunctional ideaology would have it.
    Resist change, and we lose everything. That has been the lesson of today's conservatism, understodd least by conservatives themselves.
    While the diection is liberalism is not perfect, it at least directed at making the world a better, safer place, and concerns itself with the dignity of us all, not just the hysterical few.

June 28, 2009

Whenever I hear some conservative complain about big government, I shake my head with disgust. Despite their incessant complaints, long memorized and tiresome to hear, there is not a single conservative alive who can significantly reduce our government to the Jeffersonnian ideal of agrarian democracy. Their complaints sound more like mantras that no longer works in their favor, but they can't think of anything relevant to say. The most that they can do, and they do this very well, is make sure that big government fails and chaos ensues.
    It is sad to see how they are wasting precious opportunities to change politics for the better. They will never have a president as Positive, intelligent, open-minded and hopeful as Obama. And all they choose to do is castigate him and hope he fails. The trouble is, if President Obama fails, the nation fails with him. And for what? A conservative ideology long out of date and completely inappropriate to our needs.

June 23, 2009

It boggles the mind how hardcore Republicans are coming out condemning the president's hands-off approach to the rioting in Iran.
    After years of proving how incompetent they are in foreign and especially mid-eastern affairs, they still feel no compunction in showing their complete ignorance. They prefer whatever small political gain they can achieve with their posturing than the actual success of the Iranian demonstrators.
    How many times does history have to show that these people do not want any foreign interference, especially from the West, and that the approval and support of the United States only makes their cause look suspect and even treasonous in the eyes of their people?
    Of course, none of these "mistakes" in political judgment should be surprising. Conservatives would rather look tough and arrogant rather than be right. Their concern is about principle — but what principle is that? Unbending ignorance? Unerringly making the worst possible mistakes? War, war and more?
     It is amazing how they thrive on spreading discontent and hysteria! What else do they offer? They bring the economy to ruin, and then condemn the opposition for the expense of repairing it! They proclaim family values, and show anything but! They bring new leaders into prominance not for their intelligence or knowledge of the world or desire for peace, but for their ordinariness, slang and poor judgment!
    You would think they would be re-evaluating their poor image, and even poorer results after losing so much power, but they hold steadfast, offering no more than being the "loyal opposition." Opposition to what? Peace? Progress? Equal rights? Healing the economy? Uniting a nation they divided for political gain? I see nothing patriotic about it.
    I find myself asking, what is American about conservatism as it is today? Their only genuine platform centers on superficial pride and tax cuts for the wealthy. Everything else, be it talk about freedom or religion or family values is a smoke screen.
    I try and I try to find the silver lining to conservatism, and it just isn't there. That they have fooled so many of the people for such a long time is a monument to diversionary propaganda.
    The Democrats fail to see this. They actually see the competition as a contest between equals, and honor (or fear) conservative rhetoric. Yes, it is a liberal idea to be inclusive, but inclusive to an ideology that would fill the atmosphere with carbon and launch multiple wars just to look tough? It is time we clean our eyes to what is happening before it is too late.
     If the Democrats crumble, we are lost.

June 15, 2009

Newt Gingrich recently gave a speech at a Republican fund raiser. Doing so, he revealed some insight into the conservative soul as it has morphed in the twenty-first century.
    He proudly claimed that he was not a citizen of the world, to the applause of his audience.
    What he was proudly proclaiming is that he is a nationalist, a person who is fanatically patriotic, who feels that his culture and way of life is so superior to others that the rest of the world does not really matter. There is nothing to learn from other cultures. Our interests will always supersede anyone else's. He feels no allegiance with the other nations, or with the world itself.
    If he is not a citizen of the world, then that explains his myopic vision of the world, and to my mind that makes him a poor American.
    His mindset is just an inch away from ideological totalitarianism, which his brand of conservatism surely is. While he professes to stand for freedom, it is a freedom that demands you fit his ideology, his provincial beliefs and ethnocentricity, which is, in effect, no freedom at all.
    It is a strange kind of nationalism in that it encompasses a minority opinion that does not reflect the ideals of the majority. His "nation" is not the United States of America. It is conservatism. He has no use for those who believe that American ideals mean more than catering to conservative pride, the wealthy and the selfish, and disregarding the rest.
    His nationalism reflects only conservatives. The rest of us might as well be living on another continent. For all he cares, the economy could collapse completely as long as we keep regulations at bay. We can fight a dozen wars as long as we do not talk to our enemies, and pay lip service for our soldiers who die for his kind of warped values. Because of people like him, capitalism is not just our economic system, it is our national philosophy. Why? Because conservatism has no positive philosophy to believe in. It can only negate and complain.
    No conservative leader has ever been conservative enough to make conservatism work. This is no coincidence. While they praise Ronald Reagan for winning elections and being liked, he actually raised taxes under his watch, and did nothing to shrink government. Despite the rhetoric, he was a moderate.
    Today's conservatism is being defined by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who live in a world of megalomaniacal make-believe. Actual politicians who call themselves conservative, the sane ones at least, are far more moderate, but feel that they have to mimic the language of their talk show leaders. This is the trap they live in by bowing down to extremist fanatics. Lockstep ideology, fear of deviation from the extremist party line, has all the makings of totalitarianism.
    Let me state what I believe are American ideals.

• Individuals who think for themselves and follow no one.
  
• Civility.
  
• Honesty.
  
• Equal rights.
  
• The kind of freedom that reflects the best of humanity, not the worst.
  
• Facing the future courageously, instead of hysterically trying to restore the past.
  
• Separation of church and state.
  
• Looking out for the safety and good of our fellow citizens.
  
• Avoiding war whenever possible by diplomacy and moral leadership, and not being provocative.
  
• Caring about all people, rather than just a certain faction or region.
  
• Protecting the world we live in.
  
• Real fairness in trade.

Today's rabid conservatives actually find these ideals radical and dangerous! They would strangle compassion in all of us, as if freedom could only be had through contrived rules of anger and negativity.
    Mr. Gingrich, I tend to agree with you. You are not a citizen of the world. Not this world, at least. You are a citizen of Conservia, a distant, dying planet that exists somewhere in your imagination, seeking to populate our own green Earth with your sick philosophy.
    We do not want your failed philosophy here. Please go back to your own world, and take Sarah, Rush Sean and Glenn with you.

June 13, 2009

How's this for a discription of Rush Limbaugh?

"A bouncing, arm waving, megalomaniac for whom there is only one madman conservative enough to bring the full hysteria of baseless discontent to the world. Rush Limbaugh himself.
    "The reason he keeps picking at the front of his shirt is because his body order is like a narcotic that he constantly sniffs to get high.
    "And conservatives like him."

May 22, 2009

In my study of conservatism, I find myself still perplexed by the fear and paranoia that seems to define its energy. Where does that come from? Certainly the French Revolution was a fearful event, but to base all future change on that seems ludicrous.
    To hear their constant, self-righteous hysteria, one might think that the will of the people was far more dangerous than we have experienced in the last 200 years.
    Their staunch faith in conservatism is just as perplexing. What do they base it on? We've never really seen an exemplary example of functional conservatism. It's hard to know what the results would be. So far, what have their leaders accomplished? One mess after the other. Their excuse? "He or they weren't conservative enough!"
    But then, conservatism has produced some likeable characters. They often point to Ronald Reagan, but by today's standards, he was hardly a conservative at all. And what did he really accomplish? Barry Goldwater certainly did not approve of today's conservative alliance with the religious right. Nixon? Lord, he was a liberal! He gave us the EPA!
    We have nothing much to judge conservatism on, besides their complaints and repeated failures. The failures have hurt them as of late. The broken economy, the unjust war in Iraq, and the complications that arose because of it. Torture. Corruption. Katrina. Leaders so ignorant that they openly fight to sustain global warming and dirty energy. Civil rights issues. So, what exactly is the appeal? What's left?
    The complaining, of course. If you complain enough, it attracts people who are discontent and look for conspiracies everywhere. Misery loves company.
    One need only listen to conservative talk radio or Fox television to see this is action. Complain enough, make suggestive accusations, even with no proof, and all you see is the dark side of every issue.
    To support your anger, truth becomes expendable. After a while, it becomes a hindrance, and is thrown away entirely. Everything comes down to plotting and scandal-mongering. Think tanks devise negative strategies based on deceptive words or distractions. Their opinion of human potential is so low that they offer candidates like George W., Tom Delay, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, hoping they win because of the public discontent and distrust, that they themselves instigate. When they fail, they experience an identity crisis based in having so much energetic strategy with no real goals or substance. That Rush Limbaugh is their philosophical guru, and the irrascible Glenn Beck his runner-up, says it all.
    Their only hope for the future, and the hope is every real, if not inevitable, is the failure of liberals. Knowing this, they work tirelessly to make them fail. They offer nothing better, and usually a lot worse, but they just do not care enough about the nation to do anything else. We've seen what they offer, and we barely survived it. But is liberals fail, they will rise and rejoice. Whereas conservatism has no soul, liberalism has no spine.
    Barack Obama is truly the only hope that liberals have. He appears to be the only hope that America has, for peace, prosperity, and a flourishing of American ideals. I fear that the Democrats will fail him (and us)—and conservatives will deem that a victory.

May 21, 2009

The Democrats who voted to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison open out of fear of looking weak have proven themselves to be exactly that. So weak, in fact, that they would no doubt vote for another invasion like Iraq if the big, bad conservatives told them too. I thought the last election had freed us of that insanity, but the Democrats prove how afraid and dependent they are on the mad opposition. I once believed that conservatives owed their very existence to the opposition of liberalism. Our liberal party, it seems, is no better.
    It seems that our two system party has given us two choices. Hysterics and stupidity on one side, cowardice and lack of vision on the other. I don't consider either a compliment.
    Democrats make a huge mistake if they think that they will keep their ascendancy as a default position. They have to stand for something. If their ideals are as dead as those of conservatives, but just less destructive, then they will be the next to fall. I look forward to their replacement.
    Colin Powell talks of a new Republicanism, that he himself represents. I like that idea. A man of serious thought, personal honor, and unquestionable moral stature. I wait with interest to what he has in mind.

May 20, 2009

The Republicans think it is great strategy to childishly rename the Democratic Party to the Democrat Socialist Party.
    The Democrats might want to so something similar to their opponents. If they want to rename the Republican Party, they might consider the name first suggested by John Stuart Mills—the Stupid Party. More and more, it seems to fit.
    On a different subject, I'd like to express my disappointment in the U.S. Senate in voting down the closing of the prison at Guantanomo Bay.
    Has the panicked fear-mongering of conservatives made us a nation of cowards, so that we fear that even locked away prisoners are considered a national threat?

May 4, 2009

One of the major problems with conservatism is that it starts out with a premise that they firmly believe. Government is bad, a threat to freedom, and so the smaller and weaker the government is, the better of we are. This distrust extends itself to democracy itself. The people will always want more from government, which would expand it to their benefit. People therefore need to be controlled through incessant propaganda.
    What do they base this negativity on? A distrust of human nature, deriving from religious doctrines of the fallen nature of humanity, from observing the terrible atrocities of the French Revolution, and from looking inside themselves and obviously finding nothing to contradict it. Indeed, when they gain political power, sure enough, the workings of government and the economy naturally go in the wrong direction. Vice and corruption flourish, and civil rights detracted. Their negative prophecies are based on conservatism, not liberalism, as they claim. Unfortunately, liberalism is harmed as well. Conservatism provides a dastardly impediment to every attempt at progress, as we see today.
    Their ideology owns an interesting hypocrisy. Their bleak view of human nature does not extend to business elites, for whom they dedicate themselves to helping in any way they can. Even when corporate CEOs show how personal greed shapes their every decision, and the economy collapses because of them, conservatives hold true to their failed philosophy. Government is the enemy. The truth is, it is their version of government that is the enemy-subversive from the start. Lowering taxes while expanding costs. Bullying other nations in a global economy. Seeing major problems and not being able to offer remedies, because effective action runs against conservatism.
    Their subversive rhetoric seems to intensify during times of crisis, when their failed policies need quick remedies. They would have President Obama's economic rescue fail just to prove themselves right, if by right we mean offering nothing but tax breaks and further deregulation until the nations falls apart completely.
    Conservatives, it would seem, are their own worst enemies, and the general public is starting to understand this.

April 29, 2009

The more I read this book, the more amazed I become. This insight into conservatism is surprisingly direct, with no pulled punches.
    The strategies and propaganda machine of conservatism has perfected the art of complaining about things they deem bad (whatever they disagree with at the time), in defense of what is worse. They loathe democracy and the hint of equality. They fear what they call the leveling of society, a term I heard John Boehner use recently. That the raising of the downtrodden might hamper the excesses of the haughty upper class is abhorrent to them. That their rhetorical strategy has shaped itself into manipulative art is proven by how they garner support from those who would only lose from their vision, lose and be discarded. No doubt Joe the plumber thinks he carries a populist message as he does his masters' bidding.
    Conservatism is a desperate attempt to justify and resurrect an old, archaic regime-one that easily supported slavery and fought against freedom, convincing its followers that they were fighting for freedom. While I salute their talent, I hold it similar to that of Joseph Goebbels.
    So convinced they were that democracy and equality would ruin the privileges of the upper class, the vanguard of conservatism hated their influence before it ever took hold. To hear them today, you would think that the wealthiest Americans are being persecuted to death! That they are being caught up by mobs of unruly peasants and taken to the guillotine! It's all hysterical fantasy based more on paranoid habit than anything else.
    We do not need any sort of aristocracy to hold us down for our own benefit. Too many business and political elites have shown themselves, time and time again, that they care only about themselves. The people are merely a means to their ends, and are best kept docile, placated and spending. When even the hint of threat arises, sow the seeds of hysteria, which we see every day now, to get unquestioned support of the unsupportable.
    Look. Democracy does have its faults. People do not always vote or support issues the way they should. But they do hold the vote sacred and in the end set things right. The people have far more conscience and respect for our way of life than corporate CEOs and politicians who wallow in lies and corruption.
    Raising the poor may seem an unjust burden to those indoctrinated to a perversion of Christian values. They may judge harshly how those who are less industrious profit from the meager benefits of government subsidies. They do this with no vision for the future, for generations unborn. In the meantime, they have no qualms about the taxes we all pay going to the coffers of big business in government subsidies, in effect, holding us down in the taxes we pay for the rich.
    The more I read, the more insane it seems to get, but it does explain a lot of the insanity we see today.

April 28, 2009

While continuing my journey into Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, which offers many quotes from famous conservatives of the past, I am struck by the recurrence of a common theme, a blanket distrust of democracy in favor of "gentlemen," the democratic replacement of England's aristocracy.
    What I find so fascinating is that they start with a theory that common people will naturally carry ignorance and vices into the system, and become tyrants. But this is not a theory to them, it is a proven, inevitable fact, no doubt concluded after studying hundreds of previous democracies fail. Of course, there were not hundreds of democracies before the United States to study, so where their certainty comes from, other than noting their own personal vices, I do not know.
    But this blanket distrust explains a lot when examining the present day conservatism of talk show hosts, the Sean Hannitys and Glenn Becks, and their equally obnoxious local clones for whom a microphone becomes a conduit for their innate paranoia and desire to tear people down.
    It you don't trust the American people, if you don't trust your own audience, you basically do not respect them. If you do not respect them, truth and fairness are not so much important as manipulation. They prefer revving people up with kind of blind anger so that they vote even against their own interests. They feed into prejudices that they assume define most people, because they have to talk down to their worst inclinations. When they nominate someone of low potential, like George W. or Sarah Palin, their lack of luster and intelligence merely confirms their low opinion of the average citizen. When the people vote them in, well, there's all the proof you need. Now we can get down to the kind of manipulation of secrecy, lies and audacity that will keep these dastardly commoners in a state of hysteria and control. If they feel constantly menaced by communist or fascist boogey-men, they will proudly ignore their own self-interests and relinquish real power to business elites who huddle behind closed doors.
    Now, I am not saying that democracy, as we know it in this democratic republic, is a well oiled machine that does not make error. I've been to enough Town Meetings where I wanted to run outside and scream after the same people continue to make public fools of themselves at the expense of sanity. I've heard Michele Bachman as well. When Sarah Palin claims to be saying "no thanks" to an earmark for the infamous bridge to nowhere, and then keeps the earmark, I have to shake my head and wonder why Republicans cannot see through that. I then remember, they are conservatives. They don't trust human nature, and for very good reason. Their own best tendencies have been warped by professional propagandists.
    Now, I could almost admire people who so distrusted an enemy, i.e., average people, for the supposed good of the nation, that they went to such extremes to protect it. They want to save the people from themselves, that they surreptitiously place power in the hand of kindly, benevolent, omniscient CEOs and money grabbing politicians instead. Their version of aristocracy. Gentlemen.
    What an incredible assumption! There's the biggest chink in their armor. A cracked breastplate that offers no protection at all.
    People like Edmund Burke and famous conservatives who followed him assumed, without question, that such gentlemen were so invested in the good of the nation that they could be trusted with its keep. What we find instead is a cabal of greedy businesspeople exploiting government, the environment and the integrity of the people for their own selfish profit. We see Wall Street speculators jumping around like baby birds squeaking in their nests for more worms. We see failure being rewarded by huge bonuses. These are the people who should rule us? Their insatiable greed has nearly collapsed the world economy, and polluted our air and streams with industrial filth, when alternative energy sources were largely ignored.
    When the Bush administration refused to even identify the people they called in for their energy policy summit, the writing was on the wall. When Dick Cheney was asked about the will of the American people contradicting his policies, he merely sneered "So?" This contempt for Americans is endemic to conservatism, which is why they attract so many whose placards contradict real American ideals.
    Good friends, conservatives do not trust our judgment to govern ourselves wisely. And to a certain extent we prove them right when we keep voting them into office. It would be absurd for us to vote for someone who does not trust us, who thinks we are too stupid to see through their ridiculous, money grabbing propaganda.
    The American people are not stupid. In their good-hearted qualities, many are innocent to the ways of partisan politics, and are therefore easily victimized by the hysteria of talk radio and the pomposity of Rush Limbaugh. They are too busy with their complex lives to keep track of all the wrong predictions that these manipulative charlatans make.
    Because of this, it is our duty to open the curtain and show who is really in control, and what their motives really are.
    And where, exactly, are these conservative "gentlemen" whom we can trust?

April 27, 2009

I have been reading a wonderful book called The Conservative Mind, by Russell Kirk. I highly recommend it, but don't expect a quick read. This is the real thing. He explains the ideological history of today's conservatism from the view of a committed conservative.
    One of the things that surprises me, and probably shouldn't considering all the subtext of the last few decades, is that if real conservatism had its way, most average citizens would lose their right to vote. Only people of substance would partake in the franchise, because they are the only ones, it claims, who are sufficiently invested and virtuous enough to make the right decisions. (Maybe I should have capitalized the word Right?) Hence the very blatant favoritism we see from them toward big business and people of power. Conservatism prefers rule by some sort of aristocracy rather than by democracy. Over and over its chief thinkers have said this. They simply do not trust poor and medium income people to have a voice in government.
    Now, you may say that over a century separates us from those conservative writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, and things have changed. Yes. They have changed. Conservatives need the vote of the very people they disdain in order to gain power, and they know it. The subtext is still the same, and the only thing that really makes sense considering the sum of all their rhetoric. Oddly enough, they do find support from people who are willing to vote against their own self-interest. People who don't care about climate change, civil rights, income disparity, and the welfare of ost Americans.
    The truth is, there has been no new or real changes in conservatism since those early writers. They still use, to borrow Russell's terminology, the power of negativity—to the point, I might add, of having the Republican Party being called the Party of No.

April 19, 2009

I find it amazing how quickly AIG and Wells Fargo have turned from bankruptcy to profit! It just may be that providing bonuses for failure was not the right way to go. By denying these bonuses, corporate CEOs are now doing ther best to save their companies in order to earned future bonuses!
    Who would have thought it?

March 29, 2009

Listening to political talk shows gets frustrating. It seems that people never say waht you'd like them to.
    This morning, I heard the host ask her guest how Obama should respond, seeing that many Americans don't want to save the automotive industry. (For that matter, they don't want to save the banks, or people losing their homes through foreclosure. In the past, most of these same people did not want to save the environment either, or consider alterantive fuels, or allow minorities equal rights.)
    How should Obama answer that? How would you?
    I would answer very simply. There have alwasy been people who would not spend a penny or even nod their heads to save this nation. Many call themselves patriots. They might consider themselves Christians as well. Their me-first attitude contributed mightily to all the economic problems we are suffering from today, and they feel no responsibility for it. Let it all go to hell.
    Meanwhile, those working to repair the situation are being hampered and hounded by these same ideologues. They truly will not be satisfied until everything is left in ruin.
     And then they will blame the liberals. They blame everybody except themselves.
    I say, for the sake of the nation, we should ignore them completely until they grow up and get on board.
    Of course, the media won't do that. They like this kind of tension, and give these people equal time, thereby throwing a monkey wrench into works.
    I hope we survive this, despite the loud and angry enemy in our midst.

March 22, 2009

Now that the majority of people in this country finally get a tax break, Republicans are complaining that the Democrats are taxing too much. I'm sure, by their comments and focus, that they would much prefer raising our taxes so that the top 5% can get their taxes cut—again and again. They are cleverly defending AIG's bounses as well, by crippling ways of retreiving them.
    Boggles the mind.

March 11, 2009

I continue to be amazed by the clueless juggernaut approach of today's national Republicans. It just doesn't end!
    With millions of people losing their jobs, with very few jobs available to compensate, all we hear from the Republicans in Washington is how unfair it is that wealthy people will have to pay the same tax rate that they had to pay 10 years ago.
    These wealthy people will not lose their homes, or be unable to feed their families, or be reduced to poverty. They really won't be inconvenienced at all! They'll be just fine. I don't even hear them complaining! Nevertheless, that's all we hear from these Republicans — that and trying to stop the Democrats from saving the economy. The fact that 95% of American families will receive a tax cut, means nothing to them, as if their only meaningful constituents are the rich! They want to protect the very people who deregulated our economy to ruin!

March 1, 2009

Well, national Republicans are finally settling down to doing what they do best.Having nothing positive to say, they are in full throttle being negative.
    The Bush administration proved that their distrust of the American government and their obligation to big business, just does not work. Now that they are out of power, they are using the same tired arguments to obstruct any remedy to the problems that we have, problems that they created.
    Everything that does not bring more wealth to the wealthy they deem as pork and earmarks. They cleverly support construction focused jobs for the stimulus package to look reasonable, and then completely disregarding that not only construction people are unemployed. In fact, most unemployed people are not in construction.
    CNN presented a talk given by Rush Limbaugh at some conservative convention. It was like listening to the rhetorical reasoning of some Twilight Zone personality.
    In order to preserve failed conservative "successes," Rush wants to rescue America from the only economic rescue strategy on the table.
    He accuses Obama of using fear by being honest with Americans, when Rush himself has made a cottage industry out of instigating fear among his followers. He accuses Democrats of publically destroying people's characters, when he himself does the same every day in the name of conservative oblivion.
    He feels that returning to the old tax rate for the wealthy will cause disincentives! I guess he believes that rich people will no longer want to be rich because of higher taxes. Is that what happened before when their rate was higher? No!
    He feels we need conservative leadership. Does he think that enough things haven't gone wrong already under conservative leadership?
    In his well-rehearsed imitation of an American patriot, he loudly proclaims freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to a supportive audience. What he and they fail to miss is that equality is also part of the original American vision. This they throw away. They don't care about all Americans, just themselves. They easily deride the poor, or people who want to save the environment, or people who live in California or the East Coast.
    But, to his credit, he finally revealed the foundation of his philosophy. He compared politics to a football game. It all comes down to competition. Not right and wrong. Not progress versus stagnation. Not rescuing the world from the economic crisis he so supports. It's all about winning. He wants the kind of power to "tell people what is right and wrong," not letting them freely decide for themselves. Is that American? If you are a far left extremist, it obviously is. His brand of authoritarianism has been tried before. Sic Heil!

February 27, 2009

All of a sudden, the national Republican Party seems to have surrendered itself to its loony extreme. I’m not talking about local Republicans. Most of the ones I know are honest, well adjusted and well meaning, and they often get my vote. But on the national scene, except for a few, they seem pretty crazy and irresponsible.
    Did the loonies take over? Or did the sane ones jump ship?
    Led by wackos like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and their Jabba the Hutt-like icon, Rush Limbaugh, they are now talking about taking over the nation by revolution, armed or otherwise. So much for patriotism. They don’t want a remedy to our economic woes. They created the problems, and obviously like them enough to build as many roadblocks to recovery as they can. They still want smaller government. I hate to point this out, but the United States is a large nation, and needs a large government. That’s why even when they are in power, nothing really gets cut. They use the rhetoric because it garnered votes in the past. Not now though – other than from the lunatic fringe. You’d think they’d recognize that and change their message. What they’ve discovered instead is that they still get relatively high radio and television ratings with their extremist views, so to hell with the nation. It al comes down to rabble-rousing and money.
    Imagine. These tax haters (traslate: deficit lovers) want to foment a revolution because 95% of Americans are getting a tax break, and the wealthiest 5% have to pay what they paid 10 years ago. So, who are they representing?
    They want more tax cuts instead of a spending stimulus. Does that make any sense at all? Unemployed people pay fewer taxes already. What benefit will it be for them? And if they are not buying products, because of their broken income, how do small businesses benefit? Lowering their tazes won't help at all. Nevertheless, they are stuck with the workings of their own illogic. And they want to fight to keep the misery index where it is.
    Perhaps it makes more sense than it appears. A nation decimated by recession long enough will collapse, necessarily leading to smaller government, a non-existing tax base, and a need for personal weapons. Paranoia paradise. People will once again turn to religion for their solace. The few who are successful, despite everything, will be the chieftains. One part of the nation would likely make war against the other for want of resources. That might explain why they have always worked at dividing the nation ideologically.
    We will be in a perpetual state of war, hence their love of private militias. Nationalizing healthcare will no longer be an issue. The issue will be breadlines and crimes of survival. Equal rights? As evidenced in Iraq, there are no real concerns about civil rights during times of civil wars. In fact, conservative extremists have a lot in common with radical Islamic fundamentalists. They are equally authoritarian. They hate their own countrymen, and constantly foment insurrection. They transform the God of love to a god of hate. They have no respect for rationality. Lies will do just fine. They are adept at poisoning the minds of those who listen to them.
    They find themselves a shrinking minority now, which is why they can discard their veneer of civility and let their bloodlust shine forth. They know that a certain number of brainwashed followers will nod in agreement no matter what, giving them license to say such things as wanting the recovery to fail. Their violent tendencies even shed light on their views on abortion. They want as many babies born as possible in order to replace those being killed. Canon fodder. They hate educated “elites,” because they hate civilization. President Obama reached out for bipartisanship, and they slapped his hand aside.
    There can be no more doubt about their intent, sick as it is.

February 22, 2009

When conservative extremists find themselves on the wrong side of an issue, they often turn to rabble rousing to hide their own lack of solutions and keep things high on the misery index. They did this against civil rights, against the environment, against economic regulations, and a host of other issues that we might have otherwise have solved earlier.
    Rick Santelli did his own performance in television recently that would have made his processors proud. When we heard Republican strategists say that their party is finally finding their voice, well, here it is as its lowest level. Instead of focusing on what is good for America as a whole, he decided to stir up feelings of selfishness not too dissimilar to that which got us into today's economic problems.

"The government is promoting bad behavior," he moralized, trying to divert the issue form the bad behavior of the private sector which government is trying to fix.

"…subsidize the losers' mortgages…"

"How many of you want to pay your neighbors' mortgages… raise your hands."

He reminded me of mob rule and the lynchings of yesteryear. I was surprised not to see pitchforks and torches on their way to the Capitol.
    But he raised a pertinent question that we need to answer. Why should we help someone else if we ourselves don't benefit directly. If this one gets a bailout, why not me? Why should my money rescue anyone?
    Why? How about this? Because real patriots step up to the plate and sacrifice for the good of the nation when it needs help. Because it is right and good for Americans to help other Americans. Because we are at our best when we put selfishness aside. Like in the movies, we need a hero to stand up to the mob leaders and shame them publically for their petty version of self-righteousness that leads others astray.
    I always found it strange how conservatives hold up Christianity as something conservative, and then throw away Christian principles when convenient.
    Mr. Santelli, please grow up. You have the right to speak your mind, of course, but you also have moral obligations as well. No doubt you felt like a big man yelling with your mob cheering you on. But consider, they are no representative of America right now, even though people like you would want them to be. Like so many conservatives of the past, your ranting will someday be looked upon for what it is, ill-meaning ignorance.
    By the way, how much do you get paid for what you do?

February 15, 2009

Abraham Lincoln provided some powerful words that are applicable today in light of conservative resistance to saving our economy. It would do us all to take heed:

"The dogmas of the queit past are inadequate to the stormy present, The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is nre, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save out children."

February 13, 2009

Enough Jurassic Park

"By your fruits you shall know them."

Jesus could not have been more right. What the Republican Party produces ultimately defines who they are.
    Judging by their fruits of the past, they are the party of pollution, environmental devastation, global warming, unjust war, unregulated economic chaos, catchy but misleading slogans, obstruction, dividers, not uniters, false patriots who have done their best to reduce the American Dream to something petty. Just as their fanatical leader, Rush Limbaugh, cries out for the failure of President Obama in these dire times, and Republican legislators blindly follow suit, we see first hand what patriotism really means to them. If Ann Coulter were sane, she would be calling them the traitors, instead of those who are trying to repair the nation after a lengthy Republican influence. Alas, she is not sane. She has drank from the mouth of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and there is not saving her.
    Conservatives, beware of the Republican dream. They call for lower taxes and smaller government. When they only deliver on lover taxes, they condemn us to a deficit that will eventually destroy the nation. They say they will reduce the size of government, but they never have and never will. They condemn earmarks, while at the same time piling one atop the other. They hypocritically take credit for ending the bridge to nowhere earmark, while keeping the money! They complained about the $700,000,000 bailout, and added $150,000,000 earmarks on top of it.
    To hear them get all sanctimonious about their failed ideology now, when we need to band together to save our way of life, is scandalous. Their ideology cannot respond properly to present day needs, or future vision, because they are proudly stuck in the past.
    The American people need to clearly see this for what it is, and vote these dinosaurs out.

February 8, 2009

Michael Steel went to great pains to explain the Republican reasons for refecting the Democratic economic stimulus. ANd what he said appeared to make sense. Tax cuts will help small businesses expand and hire more people, creating permanent jobs for the future.
    What he failed to recognize is that when people lose thier jobs, they don't spend money for small business products. Cut taxes all you want, why expand when there is no ready maket? That's just common sense. Cutting taxes right now will only increase the national debt.
    Government spending to create jobs will at least put people to work. They will pay taxes. They will buy products and stimulate business as a working market will. Once businesses expand to meet the rising market, they will then hire people to make permanent jobs.
    What good are tax cuts to people who are not paying taxes because they are not working?
    The ideological reasoning of the Republicans is making a fundamentally terrible mistake. And not for the first time, as the broken economy proves.

February 4, 2009

Government imposed limits to executive compensation for companies getting bailouts?
    Why not? Welfare is welfare! Cash benefits have always been regulated by welfare policy. Usually on the low side. Poor people have been scrutinized and controlled by government programs for decades, and have little to show for it. Should sitting behind a big desk making bad decisions that ruin the economy for everyone else get better treatment?
    You may say that some of these managers do good work and deserve better, but that’s true of welfare clients as well. Bad things happen to everyone. Good workers are laid off for making their companies so successful that they move overseas. Why should the wealthy be protected from bad luck, when others are not?
    It’s time for a reality check. None of these CEOs and people of upper management are indispensible. With innocent people losing their jobs everywhere, they are fortunate to be earning only half a million a year. Like everyone else, they’ll have to adjust to being just rich, instead of filthy rich—although for most of them, their accumulated assets protect them from any real deprivations. So what’s the problem?
    Pride?
    Poor people have to swallow their pride too. They come to grips with the lack of equality provided by a nation where equality is a basic given. They get used to having little control over their lives, and the lack of opportunity that comes their way.
    So, perhaps these whining, overpaid managers should just thank the nation for protecting them in ways that others are not protected. And be thankful for liberals doing something to protect them, when conservatives would let them swing.

February 3, 2009

Now that the Democratic Party dominates three braches of government, I would like to draw your attention to how well they represent an American ideal, in comparison to their Republican adversaries.
    Liberal talk shows hosts, whether you like them or not, and I am not particularly fond of them, are criticizing some of the new president's choices and political strategies. In the past, this was viewed as a weakness among liberals, and it does present problems in the political arena. The Republicans are viewed as more disciplined. They support their own no matter what. This is viewed as strength.
    But which reflects more of the American ideal of freedom and free thought? Nazi-like discipline that places the wrong people in office and supports them to the bitter end, no matter what? Or the critical eye that a working democracy demands in order to function and reflect the will of the people?
    The media admires conservative grit, but what has this grit gotten us but added turmoil, pollution, national debt, personal insecurity, and failed economy? We still have Republican congressmen calling for more of the same! And diehard conservatives still nod!
    Liberals have nobody like the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and a host of others. These nasty, emotion laden propagandists remind one of Hitler's propagandists. They are very skilful at confusing the masses, redefining every action to reflect the worst, spewing disdain and division. Liberals just don't attract that ilk, and that's a good thing when it comes to respecting free thought and independent intelligence.
    Liberals certainly have their fanatics, and have lowered themselves to conservative strategies hoping to fight fire with fire, but overall, liberalism still is the better representative of freedom and the Age of Reason thought that America was built on. Of them all, Barack Obama seems to understand this. As the chief representative of the nation, he is trying to include conservatives as well, even when conservatives did everything to exclude half the population when they were in power, and forced a conservative mandate that most people found disastrous.
    I say, liberals, take a lesson from your president. Protect the real American ideals, and don't fashion yourselves on the dregs of conservatism. Protect the real Dream that America represents.

February 2, 2009

It feels good. Everything is falling into place now that the Democrats are proposing large programs to save the universe, and Republicans are sanctimoniously harassing them. Order has been restored, and hopefully cautious progress will be achieved. It would be nice if the children could ply more fairly, and grow up to appreciate each other and drive us grown-ups crazy with their antics, but at least a functional harmony has been restored.
    Liberals, in their largess, are ready, willing and able to tackled all the terrible problems we face with their money machine pumping.
    Conservatives, in their stark, unbending paranoia, are working hard to throw a money wrench into everything.
    The result? The rights ones are coming up with vision and possible solutions, and the others slow things down with nitpicking, stubborn resistance, resulting in what are hopefully better plans.
    With conservatives in the lead, as we just witnessed in last 8 years, the stubborn nitpickers were leading the nation, which threw chaos in all directions. One cannot lead well with all that negative energy. One sits there in power, expected to do something, and ends up eating away at rights and programs already in place, while assisting friends and inviting corruption. How could it be otherwise? All that power, but no vision forward! They were like fish out of water. Those in charge of government should at least have respect for government, which conservatives don't have. Until one finds a way to reverse the law of physics, one cannot create something positive out of something negative.
    Republicans actually look more at ease responding to their natural inclinations. And sensible liberals seem to appreciate the roadblocks that in the end would make liberalism look foolish. So refreshing. The only unfortunate part is the deterioration of civility, and the kind of rhetoric that confuses the population about American values.
    Yes, it would be nice if they all grew up, and treated the rest of us like we were grownups, but maybe that's just too much to expect. At the least the kids are playing in their natural roles, and hopefully long enough to set a few of our major problems right.

January 30, 2009

Yesterday, a fellow came to the Town Hall and asked for the application for a pistol permit. He stated the NRA had warned that he had to get it quickly before President Obama took away people's rights to bear arms.
    Republicans in congress have dusted out their old rhetoric about "tax and spend" liberals in light of the economic package presented to them, that was passed without a single Republican vote.
    Sarah Palin has started her own PAC organization, with her eye on running for president in four years.
    Republicans are still harping about saving the economy by lowering taxes, which never worked in the past, and certainly will not result in new jobs.
    They are complaining that the stimulus package has too many things in it that will not put people to work, and are just liberal projects. They use the word liberal as if it meant something other than what American freedom was founded on. I guess they think that only construction workers should get jobs through the stimulus package, and that educational grants are not needed to keep Americans competitive in the future.
    Fox News is hunkered in, finding incredible minutia to complain about as if it were the end of civilization. Rush Limbaugh continues his leadership role of conservative propaganda, and Sean Hannity just can't stop himself from getting into full gear.
    In other words, conservatives learned nothing from the last election, and are counting on people being ignorant in their political assessments. They want to perpetuate every failed policy from the past. While I find this annoying, that so many Americans follow uch a closed-minded ideology so blindly, I also see it as the death knell of conservatism. The Obama leadership, so far, has been exemplary, and conservatives are conveniently accenting that by providing the same old background noises in comparison. Sure, they will excite their base, but their base is shrinking rapidly. People come to realize that conservatism offers nothing more than bullish rhetoric and roadblocks to progress and safety. They don't want bipartisanship. They don't want intelligence in the White House. They don't want programs that help Americans because, in the end, as much as they love their small-minded idea of America, they hate Americans!
    We all saw what real Americans looked like, when they stood 2 million strong on inauguration day, their faces gleaning with hope, pride and intelligence, and not angry and greedy as conservatives would have them.
    While conservatives have not learned their lessons, I pray that liberals are learning theirs. For too long they have adopted conservative political strategies, that end up placing them on an equal moral level with their opponents. They would do well to emulate President Obama in ushering in a new and better world, filled with positive enthusiasm and stripped of political decay. They need to teach the people that liberalism is about freedom and safety, while conservatism is about secret oligarchies and restrictive, obtrusive conformity based on imaginary fears, and the good of the few.

January 28, 2009

"Government of, by and for the people" sounds like a wonderful, inspiring ideal.
    People vote for representatives from among themselves, and these representatives voice their concerns and safeguard their collective interests. The institutions we have in place to make this possible are held sacred to reflect the natural law that moves us.
    Where, in this social construct, is it stated that whole bodies of our representatives can subvert this sacred trust by replacing it with the will of the party? Or by catering to extremists who are not representative of general opinion, but are by nature extreme? Or by allowing corruption to seep into out institutions through every doorway and window in the name of personal greed and power? The people did not vote for this. And when it seems that when a party ascends by the slimmest majority, they translate that into a mandate! Instead they should humbly remember that voters rarely get to choose from more than two candidates, one from each party, and usually hold their noses while casting their votes!
    The parties fool themselves by thinking that they are tested only at election time, when they wheel out lofty rhetoric of ignored ideals, make excuses for their past actions, shamelessly exploit our real interests, twist the issues to their advantage, and slander their opponents with lies and innuendo. Their motives are quite transparent, and chip away the credibility of the entire system. Their assumptions poison the well of democracy. The truth is that they are being tested every day, and are failing miserably.
    America! We have lost our way! We have given ourselves over to political pirates disguising themselves as statesmen.
    They do not represent our high ideals, and we must take strong effort to hold them accountable.

January 27, 2009

The House Republicans have made it clear that they will do their best to insert their conservative values into Barack Obama's economic recovery plan.
    I guess that was supposed to make us feel better. Didn't the economic crisis happen because they convinced us to deregulate Wall Street? Didn't their tax reductions for the rich sink us into further debt? Wasn't it their constant earmarks to nowhere that wasted taxpayers money, even while they blamed Democrats for the same?
    They act like they are protecting us by demanding more tax breaks for the wealthy, who in turn invest their savings overseas! How does that help? It merely digs the hole deeper.
    While tax breaks as a whole sounds good, what Republicans fail to understand is that they have to be preceded by lowering costs to government, or it just does not make sense. They are destroying our nation by debt, and for what? A slogan?
    They act so sanctimonious now that they have lost their majority status. Like all is forgotten. This is the party responsible for our economic crisis, the War in Iraq, our huge national deficit, Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay shenanigans, strained national alliances, resistance to civil rights for minorities, almost decimating Social Security, denying global warming until it was almost too late, dividing the nation into political regions, and preaching that a lack of compassion is okay, and even American.
    Forgive me for not appreciating their latest efforts to protect us from efforts to correct their mismanagement, while I pray that we somehow survive them.

January 23, 2009

Message to Liberals.

Power has suddenly and gratefully shifted in America, and given to the hands of the people. You must avoid the errors that conservatives made in thinking that they could cater only to their own and to issues that perverted what America is all about.
    There will be temptation to wrest control because you won. If you do that, it will be the beginning of the end. There is a higher cause than even the issues that you stand for. We must perpetuate how our union is supposed to function, for all the people, even conservatives.
    It is hoped that conservatives will learn from this past election that there are a lot of people in America that they did not speak for, a majority in fact, a wide majority if we take into account those deceived by conservative rhetoric. We need a pause of tranquility for them to see what American ideals are really all about. Not just them, but us. All of us. They need to see the joy and hope in people's faces, not just the anger of those who feel that neighbors are not responsible for neighbors, the philosophy of Cain. They need time to learn, and to hopefully enjoy a new sense of unity and calm. They need to see that Jefferson's idea of equality means something more profound than they ever cared to grasp.
    When conservatives were in power, and liberals were made to feel like dirt, it was only natural to look at their deceitful tactics and strategies and try to emulate them. This was liberalism's biggest mistake. Once you adopt conservative spin tactics, the American people have nowhere to turn for what really counts. You lower yourselves to meanness, to anger, to divisiveness, and therefore affirm your opponent's wishes. You become like them. Once you lose the foundations of your ideals, you open yourself up to clichés and outright lies.
    Don't do that. Take the higher road. It may take longer, but it is not really longer if that if the only road leading to our mutual goal.
    Let's show conservatives how to do it. Let's teach them that patriotism is more than slogans and displaying flags made in China. That it has substance, and that substance is about people, not power grabs and money.

January 21, 2009

Since the inception of the United States of America, there has been a serious, ongoing blemish to all the high ideals it was built on. Its attitude toward race. To openly declare to the world, in no uncertain terms, that all men are created equal, while keeping millions of people shackled in slavery, was an affront to all the gods and to humanity itself. This hypocrisy forged a terrible outcome for our native population as well, and tainted international relationships on more than one occasion.
    In religion, at least historically, heresy was dealt with harshly. In politics, it seems to fit in well with everything else that is corrupt. Even when slavery was abolished, our ideals were beaten down by Jim Crow laws and prevalent racial bias. Victims were forced to fight for their rights, and they did so in ways that put their enemies to shame.
    Today we have an African-American president.
    I wonder if, somehow, in the mysterious ways of the universe, this sets the nation to right. Have we expiated our sins at last? Can we set aside the anger that kept people apart and yet at each other's throat at the same time? Can we finally embrace the real ideals of American with a clear conscience, and reap the blessings that come from it?
    "We are not each other's enemy" is what I saw on those millions of happy faces at Washington Mall on Inauguration Day. A family united, and for the first time.
    It was like a lifelong cancer had been removed, and the body politic could rise and walk for the first time, as it was always meant to. National politicians, so often hardened by their own arrogance, should very well be humbled by the spirit emanating from that vast sea of people. If President Obama does nothing else, he has already freed us from the resentment and hypocrisy that placed a shadow on everything we did.
    At least potentially. The barrier is broken, but it's up to us to move beyond it now. It's up to the media to start actting like adults, and know that they are responsible for the twisted messages that they convey. It's up to politicians to find ways of preventing corruption from gaining access to those hallowed halls of Congress.
    The election of Barack Obama opened the door to reclaiming our ideals. We still have to pass through that door to eclaim them. We have to feel the spirit of those ideals and act accordingly. A new beginning — before that door closes, as many others have closed before.
    There is no good reason not to.

January 21, 2009

Some liberal television commentators are asking, almost demanding, that President Obama initiate an investigation into the Bush administration for the misleading the American people into war.
    I sympathize with their position. It seems fairly obvious that President Bush took strong efforts to decieve the public for support to invade Iraq. Vice-President Cheny was deeply involved in this, claiming definite connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
    Hundreds of thousands of people died for that deception, including the sacrifice of thousands of Americans. No true victory can be claimed in the wake of such destruction, despite puerial claims. Someone has to be held accountable for that.
    In the past I called for such accountability. I called for it for several reasons. For justice. To show the world that we represent something more than self-interest. To send a message to all future presidents that such dishonesty will not be toerated.
    But I do not call for it now.
    Why? Because it is too late. That the American people did not call for serious moral inquiry, in real time, has already shamed us.
    Having President Obama do it now that he is in office would be bad form, smacking of partisan politics, which he is rightfully trying to avoid. It needed to be done by the people's representatives in Congress, and while Bush was still in office. Furthermore, it should have been led by those of his own party, for the sake of their own integrity, as well as that of the nation. We all failed in this.
    George W. Bush leaves us as a tragic figure, someone who was never prepared for the office he was thrust into, and should never have run in the first place. He bears that guilt, but so do we for voting him into office for all the wrong reasons. His qualities were never hidden from us. We allowed ourselves to be deceived by the conservative propaganda machine. The best legacy Bush can hope for is that Americans have learned their lesson, and will never again elect a chief executive who lacks the qualities that are needed for the job. It is hoped that Americans also learn that partisanship is no friend to democracy, but an enemy that thrives on deception.
    Democracy needs truth to survive.

January 17, 2009

I actually felt bad for George Bush before his farewell speech. I saw him as a tragic figure that needed to slink away for the good of the nation. I did not see him as evil, only blinded by conservative ideology and a complete disconnect with real people.
    And then he delivered his farewell address.
    I could not listen to it all. He started to justify his invasion of Iraq with stereotypical conservative nonsense, and the threat of ignorance shook me to the core. Gains are being made in Iraq, because of his surge in troops. He was obviously proud of that, thereby missing the fundamental shame that his bit of pride rode on top of.
    There is an intrinsic difference between winning a just war and the passing of a violent mess that should have never happened in the first place. To pridefully claim credit for whatever progress is burgeoning in Iraq is to forget the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives that were wasted.
    If our national ego is so fragile that we need to manufacture pride out of the mire of shame, then the truth and ideals that America was founded on are dead. We have lost something more important than pride — we have lost our integrity. That political ideologies seek to promote panaceas of deceit and cover-up marks them as enemies of freedom — for what good is freedom that is not based on truth?
    We are responsible for our acts, which means we are responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We killed them in the name of liberating them against their will, or because they had weapons of mass destruction, which they did not, or for oil profits that we never profited from, or because Iraq was complicit with al Qaida, when we knew, upfront, that they were not.
    If Iraq does, by some miracle, become the western ideal of a democracy, and our closest ally, should we rejoice in our actions and say the killing was well worth it? Could not Hitler say apply the same logic, seeing how well Germany and all of Europe progressed after World War II?
    How do we learn from our mistakes, if we refuse to recognize them? WIth Sarah Pain and Joe the Plumber still at large, we need to learn them quickly.

Return