R 'n' R

Rock 'n' Roll? No, that garbage gets kicked to the curb some other day. Talkin' about, Rest 'n' Relaxation. 'Tis the season, after all, isn't it?

Here in the United States' Northeast we've been mired 'midst the "dog days" of summer since the final week of June. Disgustingly hot, humid days and sleepless, clammy-skinned nights. Work and/or familial frustrations easily kindled into explosive outbursts. Traffic always at a stand-still while finger-waves of extreme pavement heat ripple like sheets of distortion in the air. Ozone buildup makes it difficult to breathe deeply. Time drags at the job, flies by at home. Weekends seem like only the briefest respite and nowhere near two full days long. Americans (those with jobs, that is) are having to work longer and produce more than ever for diminishing real-time wages. Personal indebtedness is soaring. Job security is a thing of the past. Retirement now seems to coincide with death. The financial crisis is still claiming victims among the innocent while the "criminals" deposit more and more money into their bulging accounts. Congressional Republicans continue to play the "No-ist" role of handcuffing any/all meaningful legislation while perpetrating the lie that such intransigence is in the Peoples' interest, meant to keep the Federal debt from escalating. We watch calamitous oil spills fouling our waters, our lands for over a hundred days and then, once the problem well has been capped, we hear that 200 million gallons of the toxic stuff plus millions more of applied dispersants are almost all gone with the remaining quarter of it not to be a bother. We hear of new techniques (hydraulic fracturing developed by Halliburton) for natural gas extraction that can foul entire aquifers; drinking water for millions; state watchdog agencies saying it's no problem await industry marching orders as to what regulatory regime will be put into place. [Insert laugh here_____.] We read of more of our food being contaminated with shit (literally) and other undesirable additives. Killer heat waves. Gas prices rise. Oil prices begin to climb in time for winter. And, that's just on the hemispherical home front.

Abroad, America continues to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan; in the first instance, because a cabal of delusional Cold Warriors (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Abrams, Wolfowitz – PNAC mainstays) executed a particularly odious assault vis-à-vis American Exceptionalism in the guise of "keeping America safe from terrorists;" and, in the second instance, well, there seems to be only one reason even though the same pronouncements about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" are uttered. Israel is poised to launch an attack on Iran, which, if that happens, expect oil/fuel to escalate in price by at least 50 percent upon first Israeli bombing sorties, and more if Iran mounts a serious response. Palestinians are still being tortured, murdered, humiliated daily by Israelis; some of these Palestinians, residents of Israel proper for generations, thousands of years longer than any Israelis. Both of the foregoing events aided and abetted by the American government, with the continuing "approval" of a majority of Americans; such callousness the driving force behind extremist Jihadists. The American government still turns a blind eye to the continuing evidence of widespread long-term impacts of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, refusing to send that government money to deal with that tragic legacy. Rain forests are being clear-cut at alarming rate. Entire species being exterminated daily. Huge, devastating storms and deadly floods wreaking havoc.

But, the above thoughts—if ever existing at all in the minds of Americans —are now lost to thoughts about getting some Rest 'n' Relaxation. After all, this is the time to get away, to take a vacation, to linger a week or two on an ocean beach or mountain lake shore, slugging back Margaritas and/or Lime Coronas, maybe do some swimming, fishing, seeing the sights, buying fetish consumerist products of non-utilitarian nature before heading out to local eateries to partake in sumptuous meals. In general, the idea is to become immersed in mindless ennui to achieve body/mind revitalization.

Wait a minute. "Mindless ennui?" Isn't that a typical American's day-to-day state of mind? Or, rather, their state of perpetual mindlessness? You know, vacant of knowledge yet full of opinions. Filled with dreams of becoming rich, or being a "star," yet having no talent and no idea of how those conditions may be attained. So sure that a Socialist plot is afoot that evidence is not required. Not to worry. Americans are special; held in highest esteem, by ourselves at least. And, that is all that matters. We are, all of us, destined to be exceptional. After all, we are Americans.

Please excuse this writer. [Off to vomit.] [Now cleaning and freshening up.] Thanks, that's better.

The good news is that multi-billionaires are pledging to "give back" half their fortunes. In America, 400 of just such wealthy are being asked to pledge $600 Billion via donation to charity of choice. Which means they're worth over $1.2 Trillion; or, to put it in perspective, worth more than the combined GDPs of Mexico and the Caribbean (22 nations); or equal to that of Brazil; or all of South East Asia; or that of all of Africa (52 nations); or just a few hundred Billion less than the entire Middle East consisting of the GDPs for Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, Israel, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, United Arab emirates, West Bank and Yemen United, COMBINED (notice these include the "oil rich" Arab states). GDP defined as the value of all products and services created/performed in a nation during one year; this includes all income earned.

Who among you would like to wager that such an act of "kindness" among the wealthiest of wealthy will go a long way towards helping Americans to be dissuaded from any inspection of Capitalism as worthwhile worldwide economic system. God forefend we should question a system that has produced such wealth for so few at the expense of so many. That would be "class war" talk and totally indicative of a Socialist or Communist talking-point that it would then have to be immediately swept clean from the discussion table with the table itself disinfected. Although, with mid-term elections upon us, you'll be hearing the Republicans chanting this "class war" charge very soon and often as they direct their verbal attacks at the "Socialist" Obama Administration, in particular and Democrats, in general. You see, the only time "class war" can be brought up for discussion is when Republican representatives of the moneyed class do so in order to rage against the envious have-nots; against those whom deserve their poverty and hopelessness and complete lack of opportunity; admonishing the system-rejects for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps (if only these poor people HAD boots upon which to tug). The above mentioned "give back" by the way, will certainly qualify for tax deductions on the billions earned this year thereby helping to replenish the coffers.

The intention of this writer is not to disparage Americans' work ethic nor put forth the proposition that a "break" from drudgery isn't required to recharge the batteries. But, in the context of the dismal lives so many human beings are experiencing primarily because of the Capitalist few-and-many paradigm, will any Americans be concerned enough to educate themselves to what's really transpiring around them? Perhaps pondering how much of the developed world allows for more than a full month PAID vacation/holiday time while Americans are lucky to get an unpaid week or two. Or, maybe reading in-depth analysis of financial news in order to suss out how the Wall Street pigs still feed at the trough of wealth-producing American labor? Will they be educating themselves to lifestyle changes that MUST be embraced if humanity is to survive? Will they be educating themselves to the realities of everyday life as opposed to fiction and celebrity scandals? Will they be educating themselves to the complexities of international issues like Palestinian sovereignty in an attempt to actually know what they're talking about when supporting, say, a criminal Israel?

The answer is, "No." Given this time, Americans will feed their faces, spend their money on nothing of import and lay about in a comatose state of smug satisfaction. While Americans so often excuse themselves from getting involved because of the time constraints they face (e.g., work, commuting, familial obligations), will they now, during their down-time vacations, educate themselves in order to contribute to our democracy via intelligent analysis of issues of import based upon facts and not just their "gut" feelings? Again, the answer is surely, "No!"

So, as Americans laid upon pristine ocean beach sands, in another sandy location, the Negev desert, 45 homes were razed by American made bulldozers. The Bedouin town of al-Araqib was leveled, destroyed by 1500 Israeli border guards, riot squad personnel, armed police and busloads of High Schoolers getting additional credit for removing the furniture and personal belongings of the villagers while mocking and taunting those hapless victims of Israeli policy of spreading misery to Arabs; in this instance on the pretext of making way for a national Jewish forest preserve. That these lands have been tended and lived upon for thousands of years, that these same people are actual citizens of Israel, means nothing. They are Arabs. And, therefore, in the eyes of Israelis they are less than animals and deserving of nothing but brutality. Yet, a major talking point on America's resort beaches, in the restaurants, on radio talk shows, television news, was the anger at the decision to allow a Muslim mosque to be built two blocks from Ground Zero.

As vacationers imbibe spirits and engage other like-minded folk in conversation, how many will actually know what they're talking about? My guess is precious few. How many will still maintain that the current financial meltdown was caused by sub-prime mortgages? How many will still blame Muslim terrorist acts on Islam? How many will side with Republicans on absolutely no addition to the Federal Debt, thereby agreeing that $34 billion for extended Unemployment Benefits shouldn't be spent, that $26 billion for keeping police, fire fighters, sanitation workers, teachers on the job shouldn't be spent; that the Health Care Bill passed into law should be repealed; that all "ear-marks" should be eliminated; that Financial Reform shouldn't have been passed; that an environmental reform bill including cap-and-trade provisions shouldn't be even brought up for discussion; that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent should be extended since not doing so would hinder economic recovery; that American should agree with the near-unanimous Congressional resolution to support Israel vis-à-vis its actions against the Gaza Flotilla; that "special interests" such as unionism should go the way of the Dodo bird? That government is the problem not the solution?

All the above are current Republican talking points. They are all wrong, misconstructions of reality. Charlatan-esque in that Republicans agitate on behalf of the top couple of percent while convincing the American people that such actions are in the interests of common folk. Outrageous. Republicans actually lie in the faces of their constituencies and those people buy it lock, stock and barrel. Why? Because the "masses" aren't sophisticated (read: educated) enough to know better. Most believe that their Republican representatives wouldn't lie to them. Oh, the President would (because he's black and/or Socialist). But, not the likes of Boehner, McConnell, Kyl, nor pundits Gingrich, Palin, Beck, O'Reilly.

However, the FACTS are these:

• The current financial crisis is totally the responsibility of irresponsible financial instruments (credit default swaps) that were, in many ,if not most, cases piggy-backed on subprime mortgages. It wasn't the subprime mortgage holders that were at fault. It wasn't Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. It was Wall Street and the Bush Administration's insistence that the financial industry would be self-regulating; it was the Clinton Administration's repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act; it was Clinton's successful push for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that essentially made it illegal to regulate the very financial products that caused the financial crisis.
• The Muslim extremists perpetrating the 9/11 atrocity did so because of Israel's continued illegal occupation of Palestine; because of America's support of Israeli brutality and illegality, because of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982; because of American collusion in propping up brutal regimes in order to secure cheap oil.
• Republicans have repeatedly voted against allowing the extension of unemployment benefits and against allowing monies to aid state/city workers so they can stay on the job and provide public service; the claim of not doing so due to the fact of adding to the debt is a lie as both these expenditures would be paid for by closing loopholes that allowed huge corporations to off-shore jobs and have the government pay them for doing so and by raising taxes on the top 2 percent.
• "Earmarks" or "pork" is money that comes back to the People, for neighborhoods. It costs $55 Billion. The Republicans assail this expenditure while chanting in unison that the $672 Billion dollar Bush tax cut for the top 2 percent is no problem; that it will stimulate the economy. However, every Republican Administration since Reagan has increased the national debt. Clinton raised taxes on the top two percent and the best economic period of growth in history ensued; creating 22 million jobs; reducing the debt until a half Trillion dollar surplus was projected. These facts fly in the face of Republican rhetoric.
• The Congressional resolution in support of Israel in defiance of international law gave a perfect picture of how Israel gets away with atrocity after atrocity; taking a boat by force in international waters, murdering nine people aboard, tampering with evidence (confiscated video) in order to create a video of edited information (creating a fiction of victimization of Israeli troops); refusing to allow independent investigation; all with approval of the American government.
• Unionism is the American workers' only hope of gaining a living wage and safe working conditions; the rightwing-nuts continuing to bash unions to improve corporate America's bottom-line; apparently a ratio of 364 to one as to CEO earnings compared to average worker isn't enough.
  

So, every time you hear someone talking, why not question them about their views? Why not ask them to substantiate even one fact upon which their "gut feelings" are premised? Just because one's stance on some issue seems right in one's heart/gut, doesn't make it so. Core beliefs and knowledge seem so strong only because they are familiar, unchanging, repeated from parent to child again and again. Such familiarity, however doesn't make them correct. So, next time you hear someone spewing their opinion, jump in. I know, that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach is the stress of confrontation. Instead of letting that put you off, consider that discomfort compared with the daily brutality of Palestinians (3 million human beings) or the victims of American savage capitalism on billions of humans, and then question those that spew lies, or misinformation, or prejudice. Because, people, if you do not, as we're seeing with the TeaParty folk, such opinions catch on like wildfire and spread becoming a majority opinion that those in power use to further the status quo. To allow this to continue without challenge, makes one accessory to murder and mayhem; guilty, in a word.

Silence is complicity. Speak up. Challenge the status quo. Challenge the mindless spewers of ignorance or there will be no innocents come the next terrorist attack here in America.

Maybe R 'n' R should be less about Rest 'n' Relaxation and more about RESPONSIBILITIES that go hand-in-hand with Rights.

The Law

Hunhh…Good God! What's it good for?
Absolutely nuthin'…Say it again, y'all…

[With apologies to Edwin Starr vis-à-vis his 70s anthem: "War"]

Lately, the Law seems lacking. Certainly Justice has gone askance. Though, truth be told, Justice has been a long, long time deviating along that unfortuitous route. Now, the Law (whether you're talking local codes, or statewide legislation, or federal policy, or international standards of legal conduct) not only doesn't live up to the false notion of America's Founding Fathers' great moral courage to champion such "Justice for all" philosophy, but the Law is being shown as it truly is, bared of such presentiments which are pure poppycock; as they were even then. We, the People, are not supposed to notice those phrases in the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness") and in the Constitution of the United States of America ("We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice…promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves, and our posterity,") that demonstrated cowardice, for in reality, they were lies. At the founding of this great republic, more than half the population were exempted (women and men of color) from liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness and égalité.

The majority. Denied rights guaranteed to the minority elites. America's initial premise, bogus, hypocritical on its face. But, woe unto ye who says so.

In fact, as even a skeptical reading of "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America" by Professor Charles Beard will convey, America's Founding Fathers is a virtual Who's Who of well-heeled capitalist land owners (thieved from indigenous populations) conspiring to preserve, nay improve, the value of their money/assets. That and nothing more. All their hype about democracy of, by and for the People, was to bolster support for the enactment of such institutional inequality. The single biggest factor in the Founding Fathers' plan was to create a central bank in order to assure their loans/investments would be repaid either in gold or gold-backed currency. You see, when the various states began to issue their own paper currency, the big lenders would get reimbursed with currency that only had currency in the state of issuance. Inconvenience big money? Exact a tax on big money? But, of course, a revolution was required.

From such roots does present-day America blossom. TeaBaggers and "No-ists" and demagogues, Oh, my! The same hypocrisy is in evidence [McConnell turning down unemployment extension bill because it would add $30B to the debt even though George W. Bush Republican Administration ran up a 2 Trillion debt load with McConnell's help and silence on the matter]. The same lies [Arizona's race-based anti-immigration law of which Governor Brewer and Senatorial hopeful Sharron Angle claim Mexicans will not be targeted and will be treated as equals even though anyone with brown skin will be seen as suspect]. The same deaf-dumb-blind being led by self-serving, finger-pointing charlatans and criminals [Sarah Palin and Oliver North speaking at a Tea Party event in Norfolk, VA].

The inebriating agents used are also the same as back when: Appeals to blind patriotism, to xenophobia, to ancient prejudices, to American exceptionalism and, last but certainly not least, to God Almighty. Unless you glorify Uncle Sodomy's anal rape of Latin America (from the Monroe Doctrine onward), or Truman's "courage" (dropping atomic bombs on civilians), or the Republican mantra of "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" which translates into "Exploit, Baby, Exploit" you are looked at as a traitor. To want to regulate in order to preserve the bounty of America from being utterly destroyed so that future generations may luxuriate in that natural bounty, to desire regulating safeguards against the few getting more and more while the many pay for it again and again, is somehow seen as being "liberal" which translates, prima facie, to being wrong and un-American.

But isn't the Law supposed to be a positive force in society? Without the Law won't we shortly devolve back into a way of life where the strong devour the weak? Won't we become a nation where a few with power/money can exact servitude from the many in order to further fatten their already plentiful larders. Are we there yet?

Actually, been there, done that. Round robin. Back to the Future. Here we go again. The same pulling of wool over the eyes of the masses; agitating with outlandish claims of peril and doom so that those whom are exploited will relish their exploitation even as they lash out at those whom attempt to end such exploitative practices as non-living minimum wage level, not enough jobs to go around, no single-payer health care, no guaranteed pensions, no guaranteed acceptable minimum standard for housing, fighting "terrorists" over there so we won't have to fight them here.

The TeaBaggers have been shown to be largely white, Christian, bigoted, racist, right-wing, intolerant, uninformed, illogical and lousy spellers. These people are the fodder that feeds the mindlessness surrounding us. There is little, if any, thought process involved in arriving at their positions. The Republican rightwing has so ensconced itself into the Republican party's mainstream (or, perhaps more aptly described, to borrow Sarah's reference, "lamestream") that their minority status and fringe viewpoints are dictating the parameters of debate among the party's so-called centrists. In other words, the Republican party has moved so far rightward, that their center has been yanked to the proximity of Pluto.

Karl Marx (in 1848) had something relevant to say about today's TeaBaggers, those disenfranchised, disgruntled, simple masses, "...all of these fight against the bourgeoisie*, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history…" And what of this "'dangerous class', the social scum, that passively rotting mass…?" Marx says "its conditions of life, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue." Counter-revolutionists, in a word. The Republicans lost power and this insanity called Tea Partiers, the Palin worshipping, the "No-ist" strategy on Capitol Hill, Senatorial hopefuls espousing "second amendment remedies" is the result; an effort to disrupt and dislodge the victorious Democrats. Notice, such a reactionary counter-offensive speaks nothing of doing right by Americans and/or America. Rather, it speaks to the greed for mo' money and mo' power for the few. Back to our roots, if you will.

At local levels, too often the Law gets applied according to who appears before a permitting board. Long time local gets the benefit of a streamlined (read: inappropriately truncated) process; the newcomer unknown to the politically appointed board members (whom generally are of a pro-growth bent for the jobs-jobs-jobs), gets the full-monty as to stringency of review (as this newcomer is a potential competitor vis-à-vis one or other old time interest). To hell with SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) even though the Law demands it. Many local Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeal simply do not know what they are doing as per requirements of the Law. They simply wing it and hope for the best. So, if you're wondering how the hell that pig farm (owned and operated by a local yokel) was ever allowed next to a tourist-oriented restaurant (owned and operated by a new family of city transplants) thereby putting the latter business out of business, now you know why.

At both the local and national levels, the Law is warped by promises of jobs that never appear, of promises (rather than proofs) that there will be no negative impacts, of corners cut, process fudged in favor of the business applicant. So, while the business entity gains tax breaks galore and saves on initial start-up costs and never delivers anywhere near the number of jobs promised and has the process skewed such that safeguards against potential negative impacts are not demanded, therefore delivering a nice return to stockholders/investors (the ownership class), once the project goes into production and there's a problem (noise, dust, unhealthful fumes, oil spill of billions of gallons, leaking carcinogenic chemicals, etc) suddenly "the process" stops working and the impacted/harmed person is left to defend a prohibitively expensive legal process that, because of the great cost of pursuing same, always favors the perpetrator that lied and the regulating board that didn't do the job the Law requires it to do. Ironic, is it not, that the Supreme Court has ruled corporations answering ONLY to their shareholders, with vast sums of money to safeguard their interests, are considered persons. In the eyes of the Law, BP and any of the many victims of BP's callous cost-cutting measures, are equal. Well, except when it comes to paying the victims their due. Then the Law favors BP with its army of attorneys and privileged information restrictions due to the fact that BP is a private corporation and doesn't have to release such internal data. A protracted legal process can last decades victims getting paid only a meager sum. Or, as is more likely the scenario, a corporation goes into bankruptcy to avoid paying on those damage claims only to come out the other side with a new name, logo and no liability. In order to avoid such an outcome President Obama appealed directly to BP. Obama's subsequent "shake down" of BP as characterized by the "No-ists" is nothing of the sort. "The 'escrow account' in 2010 is not $20 billion dollars. BP will put in $3 billion dollars in the third quarter of 2010 (ending September 30) and another $2 billion in the fourth quarter (ending December 31). Thereafter, it will have to make installments of $1.25 billion each quarter for the next three years. This means that the necessary money will not be available to pay the tens of billions in losses that are real and immediate. It also means that people and businesses will have to get in line. The real number for the escrow account in 2010 is $5 billion—six months from now at the earliest. To put this in perspective, BP has been bringing in between $26 billion and $36 billion annually in profits on revenue of $250 billion, and pays out more than $10 billion in dividends yearly. According to a report in Forbes, BP could absorb $35 billion in spill costs before it would have a 'material impact' on its operations. But instead, it will be allowed a paltry $5 billion a year, in an installment plan over four years. Another measure of perspective can be had by comparison of this $5 billion per year voluntary set-aside to the accumulated potential fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act. BP can be fined $4,300 per barrel of oil spilled as a consequence of gross negligence. With the recent acknowledgment that the spill volume is 60,000 barrels per day, that is a potential penalty of over $250 million per day. Put another way, every 60 days accumulates a potential $15 billion fine under the Act. The voluntary arrangement to set aside $5 billion per year is meager in comparison."

In fact, the recent judicial decision to disallow the federal government's six-month moratorium on all new and as yet off-line deep water oil facilities is another example of the Law not working. Judge Martin L.C. Feldman (himself heavily invested in oil production) nitpicked the fact that while the Obama Administration via Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, made a good case for problems at 1000-plus feet (as DEMONSTRATED DAILY by BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe) the actual request for the moratorium used a greater than 500 feet figure. Judge Feldman said there was no reason whatsoever for this figure to be used; even as he mentioned the precise reason that figure was used: The Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition—itself an industry funded group –uses that figure because the Law (in this case the law of physics that determines a "standard" which) demands that over 500 feet depth, floating rig systems be used; precisely the systems that require further study. Convoluted? Absolutely. Justice served? Absolutely not. So, as provided by the Law, the Administration appealed. Also as provided by the Law, guess who heard the appeal? That's right, Justice Feldman. Now, this case is headed to the Supreme Court unless the Obama Administration decides to implement Section 12c of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and declares a national emergency in order to stop all facilities from continued operation: "12(c) All leases issued under this Act, and leases, the maintenance and operation of which are authorized under this Act, shall contain or be construed to contain a provision whereby authority is vested in the Secretary, upon a recommendation of the Secretary of Defense, during a state of war or national emergency declared by the Congress or the President of the United States after the effective date of this Act, to suspend operations under any lease; and all such leases shall contain or be construed to contain provisions for the payment of just compensation to the lessee whose operations are thus suspended." Notice how, should the President need to declare such a state of emergency, the United States taxpayers must pay BP for its daily losses. Outrageous, huh? But, that's the Law.

And then there's a most egregious breach of the Law to consider. Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ship in international waters, Israel's use of special forces to sniper/murder at least four unarmed civilians on that ship before any Israeli dropped aboard, its confiscation of all recorded media from the civilians, its disabling of the ships propellers, its towing of the boat into an Israeli port, its subsequent charging the civilians (hijacked against their will) with illegal entry into Israel, its subsequent editing of the recorded media to reconstruct (fabricate) the scenario so that the armed Israeli commandos became the victims; a video created that played worldwide as truth. By the end of the brutal assault, nine civilians were dead; the rest held and questioned by Israeli authorities. Now, ask yourself this: "Had ANY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD done the same, having murdered an American in cold blood after illegally boarding a ship in international waters, would America be as silent as it has been?" In fact, ask yourself, "If another theocratic regime, say, IRAN!!! had done the same thing, would the Obama Administration be quiet as a church mouse? Would America be so willing to look the other way and do NOTHING after such a regime—this one replete with illegal nuclear program with 200-400 actual nuclear warheads and missile capability to launch them –murdered the innocent?! Would America allow the perpetrator of such indecent acts to investigate itself as to find cause/blame? Well, even though the United Nations has called for an international panel to investigate the incident, Israel refuses and America supports them in their intransigence. Utterly despicable! Unconscionable! Sick!

Of course, as their ancestors have for thousands of years, Israeli Jews claim victimhood. Israel maintains it has the Law on their side. How so? The Israeli position is that under international law they have the right to detain any ship attempting to violate a blockade in order to assure there are no weapons aboard. Of course, what never seems to come out in various pro-Israeli media is the FACT that international law allows for such actions ONLY if the combatants are nations at war. Obviously, Gaza isn't a nation; a point Israel has reinforced time and again since Zionism began over a hundred and twenty years ago. So Israel then claims that because it's fighting Hamas, the International Armed Conflict (IAC) provisions of San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea and the 1909 Declaration Concerning the Laws of Navel War (London Declaration) apply. But that brings Israel full circle, back to having to accept Gaza as being occupied which would immediately render their land blockade of same illegal via the Fourth Geneva Convention. So, no matter how Israel tries to justify their brutal illegal hijacking and murdering of civilians, they are guilty by virtue of the Law. Some consolation to the dead. This type of perverted mental gymnastics to allow continued occupation and usurpation of Palestine has been used without censure from Israel's biggest supporter, America, for more than a century with Palestinians being humiliated, tortured, disenfranchised from their homelands and murdered, on a daily basis, for generations.

Which gives rise to another feature of the Law, any law. Laws are written by elite entities that attempt to have the words written mean what they want them to mean to serve their own purposes. Too many times laws are written in language that is unclear at best and confusing/contradictory at worst. While legal experts engage in a battle of wits, real battles with human loss are waged on and on with great consequence; no, not for the scholars, jurists, attorneys, etc. But, for the people in whose name these laws have been written.

The Law…What's it good for? Hunh…Absolutely nuthin'…

*According to Marx in the Communist Manifesto: "The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."

Delusionistas

Just random, unrelated events transpiring? Completely lacking any coherence? No contextual similarities? Consider, if you will: 1) A 2000-5000 square mile oil slick snaking its way to shore, sure as shit to devastate the economies of several states, decimate the commercial shellfish industry, detrimentally impact eco-systems all along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, delivering an environmental nightmare to the American people. 2) United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, completely oblivious to the irony, standing at the podium at the UN Nuclear Proliferation Treaty conference admonishing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his country's persistence in establishing a uranium enrichment program for peaceful use application. 3) A racist immigration bill being signed into law by the Republican Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer. 4) Snowmaggedon? Snowpocolypse? A lot of winter snow in Washington, DC proving Climate Change isn't real; just the liberals' new religion replete with a priestly class and its own Pope, Al Gore. 5) Local Planning Boards bowing to monied corporate interests at the expense of the township they are charged with defending. 6) President Obama still auctioning off bits and pieces of his YesWeCan to bring about bi-partisanship with the No-ists as regards Financial Industry reform. 7) Supporting our troops in their occupation of Iraq after a war of convenience had been launched by the PNAC, oops, the George W. Bush Administration (a.k.a. Cheney & Rumsfeld, LLC). 8) Eighty-five percent of all human beings (Ninety-two percent of Americans) believe in G(g)od(s).

Lucky 7 plus a bonus point. Limited for the reader's benefit as item upon item could be heaped on and on and…

1) The Draft Environmental Impact Statement submitted by BP during its Deepwater Horizon permitting process states again and again that it is virtually impossible for a major oil spill/leak to occur. However, should there ever develop a leak or spill, the cutting edge technology available would allow BP to quickly and efficiently apply remediation measures so there would be zero damage to people, wildlife and environment. In fact, "The US Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely. The decision by the department's minerals management service to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a 'categorical exclusion' from the National Environmental Policy Act on April 6, 2009 - and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions - show that neither federal regulators nor the company allowed for an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the Gulf." Also, initially there was no doubt much emphasis on the jobs such a venture would provide. That's J-O-B-S…Jobs-JObs-JOBS!!! Now, what affect do you suppose such spiels as those above had on the local yokel members of the board/commission that would render the final decision to either go ahead and "Drill, Baby, Drill" or, turn the application down. Delusionistas, they signed off on the Deepwater Horizon project presumably for the jobs even though such ventures rarely produce the number of jobs proposed; this "white lie" a routine methodology used by entrepreneurs in order to acquire the necessary operating permit. As for the economic benefits of having an oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, numbers thrown about make such a proposal a "no-brainer" as in, that much money coming into the community? Hell, it's a no-brainer. Though, if the logic of that position escapes you, welcome to the club. Just how did that extra worker money get spent at the local café or restaurant or movie theater when they were stranded out to sea on the oil drilling platform-city? How many in the "community" have prospered? The majority? No way. Per usual, a few businesses have been making better profits by supplying the platform-city with needed provisions. Hell, Americans didn't even get the benefit of that oil as it was sold on international market like all other oil. And, of course, the local-yokel Delusionista contingent voted to allow the operating permits because, well, hell…there's absolutely no danger of a spill or leak. BP said so. Oh, yeah? Here's the payback. And, just how many pay for this breach? Compared, that is, to those profiteers? Ah, if you said, respectively, the Many and the Few, you grasp reality.

2) The recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Conference convened at the UN saw American, French and British diplomatic representatives and other functionaries walk out on Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech. Apparently being reminded of America's use of nuclear weapons on civilian populations (the only nation in the world to do so) was not polite. Bringing up the point that the Obama Administration just threatened Iran with the use of nuclear arms (referring to a "U.S. Nuclear Posture Review provision retaining an option to use U.S. atomic arms against countries not in compliance with the nonproliferation pact, a charge Washington lays against Iran.") was gauche. Having the President of a nation clearly and articulately put forth the rationale for its peaceful use nuclear program is too jarringly contradictory to the propaganda America and its European allies have been incessantly spewing. But, perhaps most disturbing of all was Ahmadinejad's acquiescence to a "nuclear-free Middle East." What were the Americans, French and British, to do? They had to get up and leave in a visual snub of the Iranian leader. They walked out to add dramatic flair to their fictional storyline. After all the rhetoric/propaganda these nations have been manufacturing about stopping nuclear proliferation, having that become their raison d'état, how could they actually turn down such an offer to stop nuclear proliferation? The answer came in the form of Secretary of State Clinton when she pointed her finger across the entire UN crowd stating that not a single nation in attendance has violated the NPT parameters like Iran has. Of course, while all 189 signatories to the NPT attended the conference, absent were India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. These nations haven't signed on. These nations all have nuclear programs with Israel having missile delivery capability and 200 or more nuclear warheads to place on those missiles. Israel, during the first Iraq war actually had nuclear tipped missiles ready to launch. A nuclear free Middle East? Fear of nuclear proliferation the motivating factor for America, France and Great Britain? Then, why isn't Hilary Clinton pointing that finger at Israel? Why isn't Obama threatening Israel? Delusionistas, they would have you believe in their delusions rather than reality. Even with unified agreement among the NPT Conference attendees on a "Nuclear-free Middle East" you can be assured that Israel will never comply, will never sign onto the NPT regimen, nor will the United States or European nations pressure it to do so

3) In Arizona, Republican Governor Jan Brewer (in yet another ploy in a long line of such ploys used by Repubs to lay ancient problems on the fresh door stoop of the Obama Administration) signed into law an illegal immigration bill that allows for police to round up, question and ask for papers of anyone suspicious; suspicious, of course, undefined. When a reporter asked the Governor what an illegal alien looks like, she shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know. Seeing as the bulk of illegal immigrants in Arizona are Mexican then typically brown people will be considered "suspicious" by the authorities. Get caught without your papers proving you're here legally, and you can go to jail and be fined even if it turns out you're an American born citizen who just happened to forget their wallet or purse. Not to worry. Republican Brain Trust Sarah Palin insists the law won't encourage "racial profiling" because the law states no racial profiling will be allowed. [Dingbat, comes to mind…"Awwwww, AhhChee…"] In an even more bizarre turn of events, Governor Brewer wrote an op-ed piece for ESPN using sport metaphors to explain the law. One of her more intriguing statements is this one: "'Reasonable suspicion' is a well-understood concept that has been thoroughly vetted through numerous federal court cases. Many have asked: What is reasonable suspicion? Is it race, skin color or national origin? No! Racial profiling is prohibited in the new law. Examples of reasonable suspicion include: a person running away when approached by law enforcement officers, or a car failing to stop when the police turn on their lights and siren." Oh? Then why does she also go on to state: "…under SB 1070 there must first be reasonable suspicion that you are breaking some OTHER non-immigration law before an officer can ask a person about their legal status. Only then, after law enforcement officers have a "reasonable suspicion" that another law has been broken, can they inquire about immigration status -- but ONLY if that individual's behavior provides "reasonable suspicion" that the person is here illegally." You know, behaviors like wearing a cowboy hat and a Mickey Mouse shirt with soccer shorts and work boots…Oh, yeah, and carrying around that brown skin, too. Republican Delusionistas would have us believe being Mexican-American in Arizona won't be a problem at all.

4) During the worst February snow storm Washington, DC ever saw, Rush Limbaugh offered his "dittoheads" this particularly poignant, well-thought out, non-fact-based nor cited reasoning: "Now, normally the rain would be going further north and the global warming models all predict that the cold weather would be going north and it's the exact opposite. All of this is much southerly, much more southerly than it ought to be. These two storms are merging here and they're El Nino storms, Mother Nature can't do anything about that, and it's just another nail in the coffin of the whole global warming thing, and each time, you know, every day like this, where is Algore? Where is the media asking Algore what's going on with this? I mean the IPCC has been destroyed credibility-wise. It doesn't mean that the leftist goons are giving up by any stretch, but nobody's had any curiosity to go out and try to find Algore and ask him to explain this or at least comment on it. I find that fascinating." How did the "Great One" substantiate this? "…this comes from our official climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer, University of Alabama Huntsville, UAH." So much the Delusionista, Rush Limbaugh needs to bend the reality more than a bit to get to where he wants to get to. Like claiming his source is a climatologist when actually the man is a meteorologist. No difference you say? Then you must be of the mindset that there isn't much difference between a butcher and brain surgeon (nor between ribs and sweetbread sausage). Known for his brilliant analysis, Rush goes on: "I think we all need to have a good laugh here at the expense of the environmentalist wacko communists in New York, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and every other snow-packed town or city whose houses are equipped with Ed Begley Jr. recommended solar panels. You got people relying on solar panels and windmills and all of these other green energy technologies. Imagine how frustrated these people are who say they're going to save the planet and they can't even save themselves. Their own technology could not get them to the grocery store during a situation like this. Their own technology would not enable them to feed themselves. They have to rely on snowplows powered by gas-guzzling combustion engines in order to get out of their driveways to drive or bike or go to a global warming protest in the middle of a blizzard." Not a fleeting thought about how the reality could be combustible engine-free, but isn't, not because of the environmentalist-wacko-communists but rather, a Delusionista culture awash in America's status quo, in Empire-ism and hoggishness that cares nothing of anything beyond its ever expanding waistlines; so, to sacrifice? A nonstarter. To educate oneself in order to make rational decisions about the shared reality we habituate with 6 Billion other humans? A pipedream.

5) Picture, if you will, a small rural township, with a once-upon-a-time thriving manufacturing sector now worn, shuttered, rotting; the town, slowly succumbing to collapse. Enter WalMart with a plan to open a supercenter on the site of a decaying mall. Townspeople rejoice. Any who attend the meetings held by the Town Board and Planning Board on the issue of Walmart opening a store vocalize their total support. Obvious to the politicos people want it because of the following points: Jobs! jobs!! jobs!!! and cheaper prices. The tax money such a venture will bring into the community is a sweet anticipation. What's not to love about Walmart opening a store which will revitalize the township? So, the Town Board lets the process slip through to the Planning Board which does the following: It holds a public hearing to hear the "people" express their feelings about the proposal; almost unanimous support for allowing the special use permit. It votes (requiring a supermajority; majority plus one) to by-pass county recommendations to do a full SEQRA [State Environmental Quality Review Act] review. In rendering its decision, the Delusionista-occupied Planning Board cites the overwhelming support from the public, it mentions that SEQRA isn't meant to be used again and again and since the site has been a shopping mall for decades, no further expensive studies are necessary to determine impacts, it mentions the positive addition of jobs, it grants the approval. However, consider the fact that there is nothing at all in the laws of New York State that allows for decisions being based upon public support. In fact, case law exists that has resulted in overthrowing Planning Board decisions primarily predicated upon public support. While "the people" are to be given the opportunity to speak at a public hearing, whether a clear majority want approval or do not, cannot be a determining factor for a Planning Board's decision. The Planning Board's refusal to do a SEQRA is completely wrong! The mall site was constructed prior to SEQRA law and has actually never had a full SEQRA review. Stormwater runoff concerns alone should have triggered a SEQRA review of the proposed Walmart project, but did not. The Planning Board should have been aware of two NYS Comptroller reports dating back a decade that found less than 20 percent of jobs promised are actually delivered and the current report finds less than one-third of the jobs promised are delivered; this in the context of lucrative State, county and local PILOT programs designed to lessen start-up costs; call them taxpayer subsidies to private investors. Lucky for town residents that a local group banded together with help from a Walmart competitor and sued the town Planning Board for not having done its job. While losing in the first round (typically the case) the appeal should render quite a different outcome. At the very least, the court will probably send word to the Planning Board that a comprehensive SEQRA review is required; which should have been the case from the beginning and which will no doubt have to include an economic impact study that can only include a ton of data regarding Walmart's devastating impacts on surrounding smaller businesses because of its siphoning of the limited disposable income available which a Walmart requires to stay in business; the fact that for every job created by Walmart three others are lost in the hosting community/area; that the supposed tax money bonanza coming to the community, not to happen as that money goes to the county via PILOT programs (Development Authority Payment In Lieu Of Taxes enticements that reduce local taxes—property, school, town and sales – for at least a decade); that the pay is minimum wage, without benefits; that Walmart turnover in jobs offered is somewhere around 300 percent (which is testament to a less than ideal workplace environment); that Walmart has been shown via court cases to be discriminatory towards women and seniors; etc etc etc. Needless to say, once the town's Planning Board conducts such a thorough SEQRA review (in order to protect the community from negative impacts), giving an okay will be quite impossible as it will be abundantly clear that such a venture is NOT in the best interests of the community as the negative impacts far outweigh the positives.

6) Congressional approval of a Financial Reform Bill had no traction for a bi-partisan vote so mostly Democrats voted to curb the excesses of Wall Street while Republicans continued their strategy of just saying "NO" to every provision. In a beautiful example of hypocrisy Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and the epitome of a Delusionista, refers to the proposed Senate Financial Reform Bill as "President Obama's TARP Forever Act" attempting to force-feed Americans Frank Luntz's semantic manipulations that change reality to fiction within a few words; here attempting to link Obama and America's disfavor with the massive near-trillion dollar federal Wall Street giveaway known as TARP even though said program was a George W. Bush Administration transfer of wealth from taxpayers to top one-percenters. And then there's Senator Mitch McConnell griping about the Obama Administration coming to the table with only half the job done (meaning an unfinished bill). Of course, this is the same McConnell that griped about not being a part of the preparation work for the Health Care reform bill as he and all other Republicans refused to participate over 14 months in the bill's construction. So, now, when the Obama Administration seeks to include the Republicans at the beginning of a bill's construction, McConnell protests that the bill isn't finished. Like Goldmember's "blintz and a bong" offer, there's no pleasing the "No-ists" on Capitol Hill.

7) Operation Iraqi Freedom. A war that need not have been fought; a war of convenience; a war to establish Middle Eastern hegemony; a war to secure forward bases for foreign interventions by US troops; a war that was never so much a war as an occupation; an occupation that wasn't about democracy nor deposing an evil tyrant nor WMD but rather a war conjured up by demented Reagan-era planners/convicts (Iran-Contra Scandal) with a penchant for dramatic anti-Communist murder sprees: 1,366,350 Iraqi civilians so far converted from living beings to so much collateral damage. Delusionistas believing whole-heartedly in American exceptionalism, better than all the rest, therefore, whatever we think and/or perpetrate is God Blessed. So, support our shock troop occupiers? No, thank you.

8) Which brings us to the fact that Eighty-five percent of all human beings believe in G(g)od(s); ninety-two percent of Americans. May 6^th was National Prayer Day a day where Delusionistas prostrate themselves and pray for a better world; one caution though, "Usually Satan will try to suggest to you that your prayers were not heard. He will encourage you to look to the problems again and get your eyes off God. He will try to get you to talk as if you are not sure if your prayer is answered. If he succeeds in getting you to express doubt it is likely that your mouth confession will cancel the effect of your prayer. Therefore guard your mind and heart, resist the temptation to talk negatively about the situations with others, especially with those with whom you are praying. Take firm control of your thought life. Think on positive things (Philippians 4:6-9). By praising God and confessing the relevant truths of the Word, cast down every thought that is contrary to your prayer. These thoughts many times are nothing but the suggestions of the devil, who is working to negate our faith." Ergo the most deluded of Delusionistas. God-ites relying on "faith" for their strength, on metaphors for proof of God's existence and whatever we do, do NOT talk about the negative behaviors inundating us; ignore them so that our "mouth confessions" will not be heard. (G(g)od(s) must be hard of hearing anything but positivity. This is how we do not take responsibility for being the only intelligent species in the universe (that we know of), how we murder and maim in the name of our Lord(s) and rationalize away our disgusting prejudices with ritual and prayer that reassures we are closer to G(g)od(s) than the nonbelievers. One can only wonder at the shared outpouring of outrage that will accompany the latest court ruling re National Prayer Day.

In every example above, Delusionistas have taken the easy way out: Staying on the rutted path of Status Quo out of laziness and fear, stupidity and hatred, greed and misanthropy. But, look at the Delusionistas when they are at their most deluded. You'll see a heavenly glow, a beaming quality that shouts: "I'm number one. I sitteth at the right hand of G(g)od(s)." If that doesn't put a chill up and down your spine, you're one of them.

Unfortunately, Delusionistas are not a delusion but a reality that is everywhere on this planet. The question is: Do we close our eyes and join them? Or, do we fight for the humanity imprisoned by their delusions?

Any Which Way

Senator John McCain (R-Az), amidst a tough re-election campaign, states he has never put himself across as being a maverick even as his autobiography, "Worth the Fighting For" carries this subtitle, "The Education of An American Maverick, And the Heroes Who Inspired Him." Senator Blanche Lincoln (D) from Arkansas, amidst a tough re-election campaign, puts out two commercials, one stating she stood against Obama's Health Care reform bill by voting "no" even as she states in her other commercial that she supported the bill by voting "yes" (when she voted to procedurally allow the bill to move forward so that she could ultimately vote against it). President Obama (D)-- a professor of Constitutional law and professing to be all about the rule of law, even as he points his finger in accusation against religious fanatics (meaning, Islamists though not Israelis) aiding and abetting violence in pursuit of their aims --issues a fatwa (extrajudicial death sentence) on American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki (for allegedly having egged on the "Christmas Day Bomber"). And then there's Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla) a proponent of George W. Bush's unfunded tax cuts (that transferred hundreds of billions of dollars from the working middle class to the top one percent) objecting to a $9 Billion emergency spending bill to extend unemployment benefits to more than 200,000 Americans even as he stated, " The easiest thing in the world is to pass this bill unpaid for, but consider the millions of Americans whose financial futures would be damaged, versus the relatively small amount of people who will be affected by this delay. Now you tell me which vote takes the most courage." [This writer's emphasis]

And, of course, we have the hysteria of Obama Socialism being fanned by the usual suspect demagogues (Beck – Coulter – Goldberg – Hannitty – Ingraham – O'Reilly) to such raging proportion that the ignorami have taken to brick-throwin' and death threatenin' and packin' weapons so enflamed have they become. Secession from the United States of America has gained traction in such dimly lit circles; where shadows are everything, being cast as they are by a reality which is only a reflection of the terror felt by those less than fortunate feudalists mobbing on behalf of a system that exploits them; serfs to the Republican lords of "free market" ideology.

Dumbfucks, in a word.

So here we are in the year 2010 with the American political scene one of profound polarity, with hypocrisy at unprecedented levels and with the American people fervently yelping anti-Communism rhetoric reminiscent of the worst McCarthy era jihadists. According to this less than scintillating sector of American citizenry, Team Obama are—at the same instant, mind you –socialist/communist/progressive/fascists whose only goal is to impose their tyranny of the left, to grow government, to feed big brother, to…Wha' da?! Hey?! Government has grown bloated under thirty years of Republican governance even as it has been largely privatized (ergo decisions made by what's good for shareholders rather than what the People require). Big Brother-- what with warrantless wire-tapping, email intercept programs, the tossing of habeas corpus, the indiscriminate use of "enemy combatant" to lock away anyone for any reason or no reason at all --has been never as well nourished as during the last thirty years of Republican governance. And yet, across America, Tea Partiers are apoplectic over a "tyranny of the left" so ominous and all-powerful that the "No-ists" (a.k.a. Republicans) can thwart every Democratic move by merely threatening to filibuster and/or by using any/all delaying tactics/procedures no matter how thin the validity in order to obstruct progress. But, this escapes the "moral majority."

Really, really dumb, dumbfucks.

This is a summation of Karl Marx's central premise re Communism: "The state of society in which there is no private property, no socially significant division of labour or exclusive ownership of tools and means of production, and no use of money as a substitute for the social control of production, and in which production is directly for use. This stage will be achieved as a result of the internal collapse of capitalism when the proletariat comes to expropriate the expropriators and places into social ownership the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Marx envisages capitalist habits and the use of money not being abolished overnight after such a revolution. Politically, the revolution will be accompanied by a temporary repressive dictatorship of the proletariat, which will then be the vast majority of mankind, preventing the old ruling class and its agents from regaining power. Economically, the first stage of communism, often called socialism by Marx's followers, will be based on the continuation of a money economy and of democratized labour discipline according to the principle, 'From each according to his capacity, to each according to his contribution.' When such socialized production has caused the springs of wealth to flow more freely, when labour has become highly educated and versatile, and when the vestiges of bourgeois habits and self-seeking have been eliminated, money will cease to play a significant role and the principle of society will become, 'From each according to his capacity, to each according to his need'." [The Portable Karl Marx, edited by Eugene Kamenka; Penguin, 1983; pg 564-565]

To review the three pillars of Marxian Communism: The People (workers/proletariats) own the means of production. The People (workers/proletariats) own the nation/real property assets. The People (workers/proletariats) rule of, by and for the People, not for profit.

With America going absolutely bonkers having been fed large portions of hate and divisiveness, with fears fanned so hot that irrationality stokes the conversation, the anti-Communist outpouring has been blistering; lots of heat with absolutely no light being generated. The self-serving leading the deaf, dumb and blind. For, think about it. The means of production has been lost, shifted overseas; now China out manufactures America. Millions of jobs have likewise been off-shored; the legion of non-working now the highest since the Great Depression. American production workers are becoming an endangered species. Trillions of dollars of value/wealth has been lost by the People (middle class) as the housing bubble burst, as tax breaks for the top percentage of earners siphoned trillions more from the People (middle class) and even more money transferred as real wages for the People (proletariat/workers) has fallen over the past three decades. As for money ruling, have Americans forgotten the S and L crisis of the 80s and the $313 billion (in today's dollars) bail out; that it came on George Bush, Sr.'s watch; that it involved son Neil Bush; that crisis theft serving as bookend to W's deregulatory debacle that currently plays out? Does the current financial crisis ring a bell? Trillions of taxpayer dollars given over to gamblers who went hog wild and went belly up— these hogs, the major American banks, those same institutions that successfully lobbied for a cut-throat bankruptcy law that would force middle-class Americans defaulting on credit card debt to pay up even if it meant losing their homes and all their possessions; the argument used most, moral hazard. Yet, even as the moral hazard argument was used on American citizen debtors and the rest of the world during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, there wasn't much talk of moral hazard when it came to bailing out America's financial elites. According to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel winning economist, "During the East Asian crisis, just a decade ago, American and the IMF demanded that the affected countries reduce their government's deficits by cutting back expenditures – even if, as in Thailand, this resulted in a resurgence of the AIDS epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving…America and the IMF forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases (such as Indonesia) to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention into the smooth-running mechanisms of the free market. The contrast between the handling of the East Asian crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, the country engaged in massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates were brought down to zero. Banks were bailed out left and right. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asian crisis are managing the response to the American implosion." [p222] The ol' Do as I say, not as I do routine. Don't these multi-trillion dollar bail outs and double standards suggest who is, and will forever be, calling the tune here in America? Could it truly be possible Americans have forgotten the above mentioned realities? Yes, they have. Thus the new strategy for simply making reality whatever you want it to be for the nonce, not to be hindered by pesky real reality, history, actuality. Lying and then lying about lying has become the operative strategy in America. Any which way. What difference does it make? Real? True? Fiction? Lie? All the same to the lame of mind Tea Partiers and Republicans and even some Democrats, too. It works. Americans are not equipped to deal with facts. In fact, most don't know how to distinguish a fact from a fiction; a condition that is exacerbated via amnesia of anything beyond ME in the MOMENT.

Just look at the People (workers/proletariats) manning the barricades spewing venomous, misspelled epithets and threatening the "Progressives" with violence (in words and deeds) because this Democrat Administration is supposedly forcing Communism down America's collective throat. Never mind that at no time since its inception has Marxian Communism been less likely to flourish in America. Yet, "Leaders" like House Minority Leader, John Boehner* (R-OH ) screams "HELL NO!" refusing to go anywhere near that Marxian "dystopia" called Communism. And that's not because it'll undermine American morality; that's already been accomplished by Republican leadership over three decades. Why Boehner squeals like a pig against Communism is because Communism is all about operating on behalf of the masses, not amassing on behalf of the few at the expense of the masses. He, along with his Republican cohorts, have pledged to refuse to go along with ANY legislation proposed by the majority party Democrats in an effort to strait-jacket the legislative process hoping the American dumbizens will only remember come November that gov'mint ain't workin', so it must be the Democrats' fault 'cause they's the majority. As long as the Republicans can continue their terrible-two tantrumatrics and fuck up the workings of democracy, the better chances they have for getting rewarded with the reins of a legislative majority this coming election.

Ironic? No, tragic. A clarion call to all Americans to smarten up or face the consequences of their stupidity.

* Let's finally call the Congressman out on the pronunciation of his name, shall we: Doe rhymes with dough as does foe, hoe, Joe, Moe, Poe, roe, toe and woe. Therefore, Boehner rhymes with boner. The guy even plays games with his own name, for cryin' out loud! A real stiff prick, that one.

Non Sequitur

From Latin [it does not follow] "The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion; an inference that does not follow from the premises." Funk & Wagnalls, Standard Dictionary, International Edition

Remember that definition. It's with us now more than ever. It will be for the foreseeable future. You see, Right Wing-Nuts have cornered the market on non sequitur and they're spewing it non-stop across the blogosphere, internet and every media market in America in an effort to demagogue their way out of a horrific reality caused by Republican rule over the last thirty years (YEAH-YEAH-YEAH…Including Republocrat William Jefferson Clinton*). The American empire has run its course. Only violence will secure (for the ever-dwindling "many") a continued lifestyle to which a proportion of Americans have become accustomed. "Many" defined as the swallowed hump that is the middle-class bulge in the belly of the beast; now being slowly digested; soon to be passed as one gigantic fecal deposit. Precisely the excrementitious result any real Capitalist system must ultimately produce.

America has operated for the benefit of its monied elites since inception. To believe otherwise is to have been propagandized by their fictions called History. That tale tells nothing of rich white men legalizing their two-fold self-serving agenda: Acquisition of more money and more power. Rather, that story is of good men of conscience, yearning to be free from the shackles of Royal decrees and burdensome oppression. Compassionate men, our Founding Fathers. Those saints to homo vulgaris blessing them with a democracy of, by and for the People.

Like I said, pure propaganda (and, I coulda used bullshit there for clarity). If you believe America is pure and God Blessed, a true democracy and really standing for the rights of the People, etc, etc,…then you're also likely to believe the following:

• The recent deluge of Fox-based noise quoting Cheney and Limbaugh and Beck as well as pretty much every pundit/talking head on FOX "news" channels, going on and on about how the Obama Administration is going light on "terrorists" by encouraging the civil trial in New York City of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed rather than using the military tribunal process. Typical charges have been leveled at Team Obama: Soft on terrorism. Naïve. Selling out our nation's security. Communist/Socialist. Muslim-lover. Blackman in whiteface and big red lips. Bone through nose. Goat-fucker. ** Any who believe the preceding is also likely to believe the George W. Bush presidency's claim that torture of "terrorists" was justified and legal. The tortured reasoning has been because these "vermin" aren't regular army—affiliated with no nation-state –the Geneva Conventions do not apply. But, the contradiction is this: If these "terrorists" weren't regular army in order to wiggle out from under the Geneva Conventions, why are these same voices now calling for military tribunals? Ahh, the problems with pesky reality always butting in and ruining such perfect illogic.
  
• The "Liberal" media is being typically unfair by going after Sarah Palin because she was caught reading off notes written on her hand when interviewing during the National Tea Party convention. While discussed at length by the usual suspects (Fuck News, folk) and even counterpointed by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, the essential contradiction wasn't stressed: Sarah Palin, just after she sarcastically referred to Obama ["This is about the people. And it's a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter."] not merely needed to read her own palm (where she had scribbled some talking points…"Energy" "Tax" "Budget cuts" with "Budget" crossed out, and "Lift American spirits." DUH!) which demonstrates a shocking, nay, appalling lack of "on her feet intelligence," an obvious inability to parse the here-and-now which is a trait that any President should have. Palin's palm reading was done surreptitiously! Like a school kid cheating on a test. She could have simply written the points down on a index card. But, no. She sought to put forth a false "perception" that was meant to make her seem Presidential, able to speak intelligently off the cuff. By doing what she did, she LIED to her own constituency and to the American people. Yet, the Tea Baggers fall all over themselves defending her. Now, before moving on, think about the points Palin did scribble down. What nitwit wouldn't know those talking points; couldn't recite them even in their perpetual stupidity-induced haze?! But, if you think about it, maybe she's on to something. If ever elected President, the American people would no doubt hope she keeps a note about which button to finger for the nuclear end game scribbled between her mavericky mams, just in case. Wouldn't want her to be quick-dialing for pizza and, "Oops…My baaaad."
  
• Another belief no doubt held by America's ignorami is that the recent US Supreme Court ruling giving corporations unlimited influence in American political elections is a good, wholesome, what-the-founding-Fathers-wanted kind of decision. All we've heard from the Right Wing-Nuts is that finally America's highest jurisprudential body has gotten it right when defining corporations: They're people! With all the rights of any American citizen. The FACT that corporations are increasingly foreign-based (to avoid paying their fair share of taxes) as well as foreign-owned seems to have had no bearing on the "Supreme's" deliberations. One wonders what leaps in logic will be induced upon, oh say, CITGO's (owned and operated by Venezuela, hence Hugo Chavez) massive funding of the next Democrat candidate. You can be sure there will be a huge, frothing-mouthed out-cry from these same Right Wing-Nuts about the undemocratic nature of this same Supreme Court decision. Again, while this issue has been bounced around on nearly every political talk show available, none have focused on the contradiction inherent in this decision; viz., allowing for unlimited (via corporate-scale funding of) "free speech" rights of corporations that deny same to their employees (also sanctioned by the US Supreme Court). Meaning, now in America, free speech is guaranteed to Corporations that deny free speech to the American citizens they employ. There have been numerous stories about employees fired for their Facebook musings on their own page done on their own time. Or those stories about corporate employees speaking out for unionization getting fired, etc. etc.
  

You know, there used to be a time, not that long ago, when being labeled (or worse, when proved to be) a hypocrite was a fate worse than death for a politician. Now, for the Right Wing-Nuts, it's a medal of distinction; showing an "intellectual" spryness, an uncanny ability to dance around facts until nonsense makes sense. Just like there used to be a time when a word's definition meant something; when using words was for communicating, for articulating ideas ever more clearly. Now we have Sarah Palin (and Beck and Limbaugh and Coulter and Ingraham and Hannitty and Dobbs and O'Reilly) using words strung together that, when analyzed, mean absolutely nothing. But, you see, this type of word usage isn't about articulating anything at all. It's about vague "button pushing" words used to tap into the anger born of unintelligence, bias, hatred, ill-conceived patriotism and a religious-based righteousness that supersedes all but the authority of their God. These words aren't meant to enlighten but to obscure reality from the fictions being perpetrated. Hey, here's a couple words for you that you would be well advised to study and know by heart: demagoguery and demagogue. If you believe the points above, you have already been subsumed by demagoguery as distributed by the demagogues just mentioned.

In fact, at least half of the American public has a collective knowledge base that is 180 degrees from (and exactly opposite to) reality; that's right, all turned around from what is true. Whatever you believe to be "facts" are very likely to be wrong. Your belief in US History? Wrong! Your belief in an America of, by and for the People? Wrong! Terrorism is a war to be won? Wrong (terrorism is a state of mind)! American elites are honest about fighting terrorism? Wrong (The United States is the most egregious terrorist nation in the world; why else do you think Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of the quintessential Latin American history book, "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano? and why else is the Muslim world so angry? Because they actually hate us for our freedom??? WTF! Analyze that phrase and see that it is a meaningless utterance of words that pushes buttons thereby instilling hatred of a people that have had their resources used and their way of life abused by the dual-headed monster AmerIsrael)!

Let's call America's Right Wing-Nuts something more appropriate: The 180s. Any time you hear an asinine, demagogic screed from the likes of the ignorami, be they local yokels or media darlings, label them what they are: A 180. A person bereft of reality relying on the punditry of demagogues without conscience; people that will believe anything.

Anything, that is, except the truth!

* Always the required disclaimer re Clinton when none whatsoever should be necessary. He was a Republican moderate and/or a compassionate conservative costumed in Democrat's rhetorical flourishes. Two "proofs," if you will: NAFTA and Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which opened the legal floodgates to water the financial sector's abuse of the system which sprouted in the Financial Crisis of 2009 -11. 'Nuff said?

** I shit you not. Google "Obama sex with goat" and you'll get back a half-million entries. This one and worse where the picture has been poorly photo-shopped with Obama's face superimposed on the Nigerian miscreant and reproduced all over the internet. Notice: These last three examples are NOT about security issues but nonetheless relevant, as in, WTF???!!!

AARRRGH!

As a boy I loved pirates. They were a colorful bunch. Bold. Independent. Adventurous. Unconventional. Besides, my mom encouraged my love of pirates because she'd found a way to get me into shorts for the summer: She cut them saw-toothed at the legs and told me that's how the pirates wore them. I read countless books about pirates starting with, of course, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson with its fantastic depiction of Long John Silver and his crew. Then it was onto Black Beard (Edward Teach), Captain Kidd, Redbeard, Captain Henry Morgan, Captain Charles Vane, Anne Bonney, Jean Laffite, Black Bart (Bartholomew Roberts), and on and on. Avast, me hardies…'Twas wonderful reading. And what rapture, after all those intervening years, to view the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Swashbuckling excitement almost as good as my youthful imagination.

Much of the allure for me was the pirates' fight against the status quo, against the stodgy establishment, against the provincialism of power and its "lawful" abuses (always within the law because the law was written by the powerful few to use against the many). Pirates operated under their own flags. They had their own code, one that seemed most fair in that work was divvied up much as the loot procured; each man getting his rightful share. Certainly not like the monarchies ruling Europe and Asia where blood entitlement trumped common fairness.

Alas, today we read of Somali Pirates that seemingly have not an iota of the romanticism of the pirates of yore. They are petty little bandits. This writer became incensed just months ago when those rag-tag criminals took yet another foreign ship's crew hostage finally forcing nations to intercede by providing military protection for safe passage. It wasn't so much that such protection was required because of the pirates, but rather, that such protection was being paid for by taxpayer money to protect private interest profits. That has been the extent of this writer's Somali Pirate knowledge.

Then comes along the article, "Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates" in the book "Censored 2010" edited by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff citing articles in Al Jazeera, Huffington Post and WardheerNews. Like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, everything is curiouser and curiouser! Seems the "pirates" call themselves the "Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia" and are on a righteous mission to protect their waters from abject abuse from international interests. When the Somali government collapsed in 1991, predators moved in. "According to the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), there were over 800 IUU (Illegal-Unreported-Unregulated) fishing vessels in Somali waters at one time in 2005, taking advantage of Somalia's inability to police and control its own waters and fishing grounds. The IUUs poach an estimated $450 million in seafood from Somali waters annually. In so doing, they steal an invaluable protein source from some of the world's poorest people and ruin the livelihoods of legitimate fishermen."

Reason enough, wouldn't you say? But wait. It gets much worse. While reports have been circulating about illegal dumping of toxic waste since early 1990s, little has been done to investigate such reports. According to Scientific American (February 2010; pg 15) "In 1994 Italian television journalist Ilaria Alpi and cameraman Miran Hrovatin were shot dead near Mogadishu, after they picked up the hazardous waste trail in Somalia." What sort of toxic waste, you might wonder? "There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes." The tsunami of 2004 brought barrels and barrels of toxic waste onto Somalia's shores, proving what the locals had been claiming for over a decade. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report "blamed fumes from these unidentified objects (unmarked barrels) for internal hemorrhages and deaths of local people."

The local Somali fishermen sought to stop such dumping and thieving and wage a "tax" on the offenders. Pirate leader Sugule Ali states their motive is "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters. We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish, and dump waste, and carry weapons in our seas." Independent Somalia news site WardheerNews "conducted the best research we have on what ordinary Somalis are thinking. It found that 70 percent 'strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country's territorial waters'."

How does the world respond? The UN Security Council passes resolutions against such self-defense. NATO and the EU issue orders to crush such "piracy" even as many of the member states are home to financial interests guilty of poaching and dumping. And, lest we forget President Obama's personal order issued on Easter Sunday evening, 2009, for Navy Seal snipers to murder three members of the "Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia" upon their "hijacking" of the freighter, Maersk Alabama.

Taxpayers pay for private gain. Common folk seek to defend their country against heinous violations. The powerful ignore abuses and work to eliminate the weak. The world's major media spin their doublespeak so that good and decent becomes filthy dementia and a world of pigified sheep feed at the trough of deception pausing only long enough to shout, "Hang the bastards."

Who among you still believe George Orwell's "nineteen eighty-four" remains a work of fiction that exemplifies failed prediction? Those responding "I do" shall be made to "walk the plank."

Framers Wanted

During our last visit, I suggested you and as many of your family, friends and like-minded acquaintances as you can muster, should seek out and confront the virulence that is Republicanism/Conservatism. I suggested an "in your face" style unwilling to meek out with typical Liberal "let's agree to disagree" posturing. What better time to do this than the upcoming holidays when families and friends and new acquaintances congregate. I'm sure every one of you have at least one relative who always manages to shut you up with his/her narrow-minded views. Time to change all that!

In other words, Time to kick out da mofo jams, People!

What follows is a very condensed, excerpted speech given by Cognitive Scientist/Semantic Linguist George Lakoff, Berkley professor. You should make his book, "The Political Mind" an absolute must-read. He and his colleagues have done extensive research into the role of metaphor on brain function and how concepts like "patriotic" can mean such diverse things to different people. Example: Patriotic to some, means having a responsibility to expose governmental malfeasance while, to another, patriotic means never questioning your government (unless, I guess, it's Democrat and/or presided over by a black man, in which case such questioning is patriotic.)

Boiled down, the theory holds that metaphors are energized by certain frames of reference. Once energized, the brain is reluctant to rewire. Every time thereafter a frame is triggered (e.g. see: stem cell, tax relief and war on terror, examples below) the brain reinforces the attachment to the metaphor used as trigger. To argue against such irrationality with facts is to go completely unheard.

Republicans/Conservatives use a bible of word usage created by wordsmith Frank Luntz that primarily engages the worst of Orwellian semantic manipulation to create whatever reality is most propitious to further the elite agenda of mo' money, mo' money, mo' money (and power, too). Witness a sampling of such lingual duplicity:

A frame is a conceptual structure, a way in which we think. Some of it has to do with language. Every word carries with it a conceptual structure and images to go with it. A simple example from the press: Tom Delay arguing against the bill to allow stem cell research. Notice the word before—embryonic stem cell research. What is the image of an embryo? Like a little baby. So who told the conservatives always to use the word? Frank Luntz, in the manual. Now The New York Times uses it, NPR uses it. Embryonic stem cell research. It has that image. What Delay said is that we are dismembering the embryos—tearing them apart. Actual stem cell research, if you check out the science, is done on what is called a blastocyst. It is 3 to 5 days old, a hollow sphere containing only stem cells, no blood cells, nerve cells, eye cells—nothing else, just undifferentiated stem cells in a hollow sphere. There's no dismemberment. That suggests there is something with limbs that you can tear off. You will not hear that on TV. They're not going to ask biologists to go on TV and say exactly what a blastocyst is. You're not going to see pictures of it. Instead you're going to hear about embryonic stem cell research and dismembering.

Framing carries with it an image. My favorite example is "tax relief." The first day Bush was in office he started talking about tax relief, and every day, tax relief, tax relief—it's repeated. And the word "relief" has a little frame. It says that taxes are an affliction; somebody's harmed by it. Then there's a hero who takes away this affliction, and anybody who tries to stop him is a bad guy. You add tax to that and you get taxation as an affliction and if anybody's against tax relief, they're bad guys. That's what tax relief says every time you hear the word, over and over. And what happens in your brain? One of the things we study in cognitive science—the synapses change. Every time that frame is activated, the synapses get stronger and stronger, until it becomes a permanent part of many people's brains.

Another example: something like 70% of the people who voted for Bush believed that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with the big 9/11 guy. Why? Frank Luntz put out a memo before the election saying, "Do not talk about the Iraq war. Don't mention the word Iraq. Say 'War on Terror'." Every time you see coverage of the war on Fox News, it says "War on Terror," until the two phrases form the same category. We think about them in the same frame. And vast numbers of Americans are assuming that what we're doing in Iraq is responding to 9/11. What do we learn from this? When your brain changes, when a frame enters your brain, it becomes a new common sense. And the facts hitting your common sense will be ignored. The facts will be trumped by the frames, explained away, not heard—once your brain changes. Now progressives believe in arguing with the facts. Why? It's important to understand this. The progressive movement had its start in the sixteen hundreds with the Enlightenment. The idea was that every single one of us, according to rationalist theory, has universal reason. No matter how rich or poor you are, you think the same way. And if you have universal reason, you don't have to listen to the king or the church. You can govern yourselves. An important idea for all progressives throughout history. Moreover, governments should be rational, and it's irrational to be against your material self-interest. Therefore, governments should govern to maximize the material self-interest of everybody. And facts matter. They are important for the realities of the world, and you should pay attention to science, look at the facts, look at prior reasons for the consequences. Governments should act in that way to help everybody. That is the birth of the liberal tradition. The pieces that are important. We can govern ourselves. We can think for ourselves. Material interests matter. We should work for the material interests of everybody. Facts matter; science matters. But there was a problem with the Enlightenment. It was a false theory of mind. It did not take framing into account. It did not notice that we think in terms of conceptual frames and we think metaphorically.

As is already clear, Republican/Conservatives have understood this phenomena and used it to propagandize the public into believing what's good for monied elites is good for the hoi polloi. The following focus on the "family" metaphor is extremely important in today's political discourse/understanding of issues:

There's also something called deep framing, having to do with the whole structure of the system of concepts we have. Concepts don't just come one by one, one word at a time. They fit together as a whole. And how they do is not obvious…If people have a number of views and they fit together, you can predict that there has to be something holding them together—some generalization. So I took it as a cognitive science problem. I made a list of what people were saying. I noticed that liberals and conservatives had different moral views and different language for morality. I made long lists of expressions. I would go out and interview liberals, and they would consistently tell me that conservatives were irrational. How is it possible for anybody to be "pro life" and for the death penalty? Then I talked to a few conservatives, and they said, "You liberals are immoral. You're irrational. How can you possibly not want to put a murderer to death and sanction abortion?" They saw it as an utter contradiction. And going down the list of issues, each side would see the other as irrational. When you see this as a cognitive scientist, you know what that means. Here are two different worldviews, and people are reasoning inside the worldviews, not in terms of universal logic or universal reason. This is not a matter of standard logic. It's a matter of reasoning a hermetically sealed worldview, which gives different inferences, these two worldviews.

I wondered why conservatives were talking about family values. What did they mean by that term? Out popped two notions: the nurturant parent family [Liberal/Democrat] and the strict father family [Conservative/Republican].

You need a strict father in this model, because there's evil in this world, and he has to protect you from evil. You need a strict father because of the competition in this world. There are going to be winners, and there will always be losers, always. If you want to be a winner, you need a strict father. It's important to the family. And—children are born bad and need a strict father to teach them right from wrong. There's an absolute right and an absolute wrong, and there's only one way to teach them. As James Dobson says: painful punishment. Punishment painful enough so they will have an incentive to discipline themselves, to take physical discipline and make it internal. He says that's the only way you create moral beings. And a lot of other right-wing child rearing books, in effect, said the same thing— children are born bad, they have to be disciplined. And discipline has a secondary effect: If they're disciplined and they pursue their self-interest, they can become prosperous, in this land of opportunity. And pursuing their self-interest, as Dobson points out, is good. It is part of free market capitalism. As Adam Smith said, If everybody pursues their own profit, the profit of all will be maximized, as a law of nature, by the invisible hand. Dobson writes that: this is what our country is about—the free market. Now what if you don't become prosperous? You obviously weren't disciplined enough. Or somebody was interfering with the free market. And there's a name for this in conservative thought. Anybody interfering is like government regulation. The idea of a free market is that you have to have an incentive (profit) and if you take away the incentive, you take away the reason to be disciplined enough to pursue the free market. Taking away the profit is called taxation. The good people, the moral people are those who are disciplined enough to pursue their self-interest and become wealthy.

Taxation is the punishment—taking away the just rewards. So it follows that if you are not disciplined enough to pursue your self-interests and become prosperous, then you're not disciplined enough to be moral, and you deserve your poverty. That's the logic. So what does this say politically about social programs? They are all immoral—every one of them. Immoral in 2 ways: they give people things they haven't earned and therefore take away the incentive to be disciplined enough to pursue their self-interest. And because they take away discipline, they make people immoral, unable to do right. Immoral in two ways. From the strict father point of view, all social programs can be eliminated, on moral grounds. That is what this administration has in mind. That's what our Congress and all of those think tanks have in mind, and that's what they write about. It's immoral.

From the notion of nurturance, every progressive value immediately follows. If you care about your children, then you identify and empathize with them and you want them to be protected. Fiercely. Who from? Crime, drugs, pollution, unscrupulous companies. All the things you need to protect children from. What does that mean in politics? First, it's the progressive idea of protective security: environmental protection, consumer protection, worker protection, all part of what we call total security. Second, if you care about your kids, you want them to be treated fairly and equally. Very important—fairness and equality are important values. If you care about your kids, you want them to be fulfilled in life, and they can't be fulfilled unless they're free—so freedom is a value. They can't be free if there's no opportunity, and there's no opportunity if there isn't general prosperity. So opportunity and prosperity become values. But you live in a community—what kind? The strict father model where a community leader tells you what to do? Or a nurturing community where you care about one another, do community service, are responsible to one another. And to serve the community, you have to cooperate. To cooperate you need trust. To trust you need honesty and openness. Those are progressive values. They all come from nurturance. It makes sense: from the larger social groups, states and nations, to the smaller—community and family

The way forward then, is to understand the battle (ergo my repeated harping on America's Stupid Factor). The battle isn't about facts, or rather, facts aren't what convinces the masses. "Common sense" and "morality" wins the day. The object is to first question the morality of the Conservative/Republican position by using metaphor (analogy) that is a common sense-type "story" that people can digest. Once swallowed, the frame is created and every subsequent use of the metaphor reinforces the frame.

The Democratic Party is stuck in the following way: it uses polls differently from Republicans. Republicans frame an issue their way, so people have to agree with it in terms of their framing, i.e., "Do you think the middle class should get more tax relief?" –yes or no? And a lot of people will say yes, and they release the poll and announce, "Americans are in favor of tax relief." That's the way to advance an agenda. Democrats will take the same poll, with Republican framing, and they'll say, "Gee, maybe we should be in favor of cutting taxes, too. Maybe we should move to where they are." But the point is not to go where they are, but to change them. So why are they missing the boat here? Remember rationalism? It's irrational to be against your own self-interest. So if voters think rationally, what we should do is ask them what their interest are, take the top six and run on that program. And they lose. Because voters are really voting their identity. They're going for someone who shares their values, whom they can trust, not necessarily in their self-interest. Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas points out over and over again that people are voting against their self-interest. And they are. They're voting on their identity and their morality, and that's why Democrats are losing. They've got the wrong theory of the electorate.

Frank Luntz, their language man, put out a section on the environment. In it he discussed global warming, and this was leaked on the internet. In it, Luntz said, "The other side is winning, because they've got science on their side. But…we can turn it around. We can win through language. We can use words like 'healthy', 'clean', 'safe', when we talk about coal plants, nuclear power." You've heard the president (G.W. Bush) at his press conferences: "We need a nuclear power plant that is healthy, clean and safe." They name their environmental initiatives after those words—like "The Clear Skies Act," that increases pollution; "The Healthy Forest Act" that allows clear-cutting. Notice that they could not call it "The Dirty Skies Act." They could not call it "No Tree Left Behind." But we can. And should. They're using Orwellian language here, and they only do this when they're weak, when they do not have public approval. They know they're in the minority, and have to use substitute language to cover up their weakness. They have to use "The Death Tax" to make it look like it applies to everybody instead of just millionaires. They have to use "Partial Birth Abortion," giving a horrible image for an operation that doesn't exist. They have to use "Compassionate Conservative." And if they really were compassionate, they wouldn't need the adjective. When they use language to manipulate the people, they know they do not have public support. And in those cases we need to go right after them and say what you really believe from your own moral position. Powerfully, strongly. There is nothing stronger than nurturing, nothing more protective than a fierce nurturing parent. You have moral outrage and you should express it strongly, straightforwardly.

By way of example, say Uncle Fucker, fat from years of overconsumption, having done alright for himself in his business (via paying his workers minimum wage without benefits) starts off his typical anti-Democrat spewing as the giblet gravy drips off his double chins, "God damned Obama! Socialist! No doubt about it…" Family history has been for everyone to sit silent even as various members roll their eyes in hackneyed disgust (although carefully so as not to draw attention and, thus, Uncle's ire). Oh, there have been outbursts in the past from the younger members, being optimistic and great believers in fairness. But these disagreements have quickly escalated with Mother saying "Enough!" and displaying the evil eye so as to defuse the situation by quieting the effrontery. Even though Mother and Father may actually believe Uncle Fucker to be a pompous ass and totally self-serving, custom dictates that maintaining a sense of holiday decorum is more important. This blog is to move you to question that assumption. It is NOT better to remain quiet. It is NOT better to allow Uncle Fucker's frame of reference rule the dinner table discourse.

So, how does one go about challenging Uncle Fucker's frame? How about something like this: "Uncle, are you saying you approve of the massive trillion dollar Financial bailout? Giving all that taxpayer money to an elite few?" [CAUTION: First you better make sure someone knows how to apply the Heimlich Maneuver 'cause sure as shit Unc is gonna sputter and choke on it a bit.] He'll no doubt feel a trap and stutter something like, "Uh, hmmm…Th-There was no choice! Had to be done!"

You respond, "Well then, Uncle…That was and is a purely socialistic methodology applied. It socialized the cost of failure while doing absolutely nothing about the continued privatization of profits. It took the People's money and gave it to those who made obscene profits before they then gambled and lost. And, by the way, Uncle...that socialist give-away was perpetrated by a Conservative/Republican Administration."

As Conservatives/Republicans are wont to do, Uncle Fucker will no doubt jump directly [Do not pass GO but he'll still take the $200] into the Health Care controversy so as to spew his "facts" that are fabrications developed by the Insurance Industry and peddled as concern for the insured. First thing out of his mouth will be "Obama Health Care Bill." INTERRUPT him by stating there is no such thing and if Uncle Fucker thinks there is let him name it NOW! HR 3200, the bill that has cleared the hurdles in the House of Representatives and made its way to the Senate floor is the bill in question and Team Obama didn't write a single word of it!

Uncle will sputter, he'll huff and puff, and no doubt he'll jump right back into his litany of falsities, like, the "death panels" that'll decide if Grandma should live or die, or the "40 percent cut to heart and cancer specialists" which will decimate the field thereby putting Americans at greater risk of dying, or how you'll not be able to choose a doctor, etc etc.

You'll have to issue the "WHOA-WHOA-WHOA" to break the train of lies and distortions spewing forth. Hit Uncle Fucker with the facts (contained in prior blog re debunking health care lies/fabrications, the Conservatives for Patient Rights— CPR —fallacy, the Kaiser health news rebuttal to the 40 percent cut mythology, the tort reform benefit exaggeration, etc.) I mean, by the time you ratta-tat-tat that shit, ol' Uncle Fucker is gonna be chokin' on his bird!! And when Mama gives you the arch-browed, head wagging "ENOUGH!" you should calmly reply, "No, mother…It's about time people know the truth and not remain stupid to the reality of what's going on. It's the moral thing to do!" Remember to stress the Conservative/Republican misuse of information and not facts, their lying and not facts, their chicanery used, not the facts, per se. And, if all else fails, at least tell Uncle Fucker to go fuck himself for being such an immoral bastard!

Then, enjoy your pumpkin pie! You'll have earned it. Also, you might want to give thanks for having such a fine meal; remembering how many in the world are suffering to provide this meal to us, we, the empire's beneficiaries (as these scraps from the Capitalists' tables is a meal fit for kings and queens of the third world; the masses would be thankful for just a whiff of same.)

Whatever you do, keep on confronting the idiocy rampant in America where ever and whenever you come across it.