Bernie Sanders, Burning Down America's Political Establishment

THE GOOD NEWS IS, BERNIE SANDERS, independent U.S. Senator from Vermont, self proclaimed socialist, is running for president, as a democrat, challenging the almighty Hillary. The bad news is, his chances seem slim to none. It would require a seismic shift in the electorate, an uprising of the young and restless. Sanders advocates public financing of political campaigns, the breaking up of the big banks, and free college for all who qualify, among other left wing causes. How he would pay for college is uncertain; best guess is that he would gut the military, which could be gutted deeply and still remain by far the world's strongest, capable of maintaining and defending the great American global corporate empire which we all love, cherish, or, in the case of liberals, ignore. We could save money on political campaigns by legislating nine easy words: "the sale and purchase of political advertising is prohibited". Then, require all media outlets to provide free time to candidates, in reasonable quantities. Its time for the rest of us to stop letting our ultra conservative fellow citizens demonize the word "socialism", and maybe Bernie can do it. We have socialized fire and police protection, socialized city streets, sewers, state and federal highways, and socialized schools. Then too, medicare, medicaid, and social security. And, come to think of it, our military is not privately owned for profit, now, is it? There is nothing, really, not to like about any of America's socialist institutions. They all work like a charm. So you think Bernie hasn't a chance? Bear in mind that in 1920, and again in 1932, socialist and communist candidates for U.S. president got over a million votes. If Bernie can help America understand that every republican running for president is a complete, intellectually accomplished lunatic, and that Hillary is old hat, a watered down conservative, and if he can get America's college campuses fired up like people such as Ross Perot and Ron Paul have proven can be done, you never know. Bernie might just set fire to the moribund establishment, and burn the conservative house down.

Burning Down Baltimore, Getting In the Game

GRANTED, THE "PROTEST" IN BALTIMORE became a riot, with stealing, burning, and looting. Give Obama dredit; he knows crime when he sees it, and he identifies it. Of course, he used to live on the south side of Chicago, so he certainly should. Granted, there are many leaders within the African-American community who spend more time applying make up than tangibly assisting the eternal crusade against racial injustice. Granted, the Baltimore targedy was not about race, at least, according to many locals, even though the looters and rioters were, according to cameras, all African-American. And, finally, granted, the best way for people of whatever skin pigmentation to advance in life is to work hard, get an education, and play by the rules. But is that all there is to it? Is that it? Somewhow, something seems to be missing here. Before our black brethren and sistern can get started on their higher education, doesn't George Wallace have to step aside, and quit blocking the door? He already did that, you say? OK, fine. Then don't we need to dramatically upgrade public schools in our inner American cities, instead of closing them? Yes, of course, much progress had been made. Those of us eixty years old or older have seen it, close up. Public restrooms and water fountains are now for everyone, they aint no mo white only and colored only, and so forth, blah blah blah. But have we the American cracker community formally, officially, and completely eliminated racism from our collective, societal hearts of hearts? Do those among us with dark brown skin rather than light brown skin really have an equal chance at that good job? All other things being equal, believe it or not want to, at one time or another, nearly every sociology department of every major American University has asked this very question. And they have answered it using a wide variety of useful techniques, including graduate students, extensive surveys, and numerous other forms of intelligence and scientific analysis. Every single study has yielded the same answer. Repeatedly, conclusively, the answer is: no. We have not eliminated racism in America. It is, in fact, as prevalent as ever, albeit in more subtle, less visible forms. White guy gets the job, black man does not. Send out a thousand completed job apps, to employers all over the fruited plain, half of them black sounding, half white sounding, in terms of names and essays, and, all other things being equal, the white guy gets hired, every time, all across America, in business after business, job after job. It never fails. It is no coincidence. It is demonstrable, plain, residual, lingering racism. And don't give me that crap about ivory tower intellectuals, out of touch with reality. The opposite is true. Science works. Universities, using science, always find the truth, no matter how long it takes, because science is self correcting, redundantly self checking, and in the end, it all adds up. Hence, our modern science based lifestyle. America, despite all its greatness and virtue, remains, at heart, a deeply racist country. And you can talk about playing by the rules instead of burning down Baltimore and stopping the race card industry all you want. No matter who you are, or what color, if you are going to succeed in life, if you are going to win in life's game, you must first be given a chance to get in the game.

The National Football League, Coming Clean

I FREELY ADMIT THAT I don't know much, and until today, for example, I had no idea that the National Football League is registered with the United States government as a philanthropic, non profit, tax exempt entity. Even though I've been soaking up the on field action for fifty years, I never had any idea. Excuse me? All that, for an obviously profit seeking profit making business enterprise which just last year grossed an estimated six billion American dollarinos. What do they do, drop a few coins in March of Dimes buckets? Volunteer as escorts and body guards at United Way fund raisers? Lend celebrity appearances for worthy causes? Something, surely. Breaking news: the NFL intends to surrender its non profit tax exempt status, post haste! Maybe it will even stop letting America's tax payers pay for their stadiums, but don't count on it. Cash flow considerations. Why forego their enviable non profit status? To avoid financial disclosure laws? To hide Commissioner Goodell's multi million dollar salary? Public relations? Could be Pee Ar. Bear in mind that the League is going to be out at least a billion dollars, and likely much more, for damage compensation to former players who sufered, and are still suffering, the ill effects of concussions, which for decades were called "getting your bell rung", laughed at, dismisssed as unavoidable, unimportant reasons to sit out only a few minutes, then jump right back into the game. Next thing you know, they'll go back to leather helments, and start holding their heads up and away from contact, rather than using said heads, as they currently do, as speartips. And hell, who knows? Perhpas the League will actually start contributing something financially to their respective communities, as it questionably claims it already does, start paying for its own facilities, and start sharing the wealth a bit with, say, consession workers, custodians, and all those little people who really, if you think about it, make professional football the glitzy gladiatorial spectacle thaw we the American people have come to know and love, so very deeply, so very hard hittingly.

Are Protesters Against Racism Phony, Or Are Their Critics Phony?

THE REVEREND AL SHARPTON @ the Reverend Jesse Jackson are hustlers who have turned racism into a profitable industry, according to some conservatives, most notably, the ubiquitous Rush Limbaugh. In other words, their constant dwelling on the issue of racism in America is not an attempt to end it, but, rather, an attempt to perpetuate it, presumably for their own profit. Twisted though this reasoning sounds, it deserves consideration, as do, really, all points of view. Did slavery exist for 246 years in America? Was there such a thing as "Jim Crow" laws, or were they simply part of some science fiction novel? Has there ever been anti-African-American racism in America, is there any now, or was it all merely an illusion, a fabrication in a cheap novel? Well, it seems like, the answer should be "yes", it really did happen; it was not made up. There does seem to be evidence of it, a pattern to it. Now, there seems to be a pattern of white cops mistreating, once in a while, black law breakers, or is that also a fabrication of the far left? One must be open minded in asking these questions. Limbaugh quoted Booker T. Washington, a late nineteenth- early twentieth century advocate for African-American opportunity, who himself seemed to feel that some fellow advocates advocated only for the purpose of supporting their own fame, fortune, and power. Could it have been that Booker T. simply felt the competition of fellow advocates a bit too closely, and was in fact promoting his own career? Herbert Hoover believed that depression era protesters were communist plants, not World War One Veterans. Richard Nixon thought that anti-Viet Nam war protesters were thugs, snobs, commies, and trouble makers, who really didn't give a damn about ending a war. And Rush Limbaugh thinks that prominent black people who claim to try to end racism in America really don't want to end it, they want to extend it, for their own careers. Could it be that Hoover, Nixon, and Limbaugh were themselves trying to promote their own careers, by positioning themselves against people whose causes were just, but unwinnable, by demonizing the protesting anti-establishment while self promoting from the safety of the establishment? Heaven only knows.

Bush, Complaining From a Very Safe Distance.

WELL, IF THAT AINT THE POT calling the kettle black. Since he left office, and handed Barack Obama a severe recession and two needless, devastating wars, George Bush the younger has, wisely, kept his mouth shut. But shut he can keep it no longer. perhaps he feels that he has given his successor sufficient honeymoon time, and adequate head start before unleashing the hounds of vitriol. According to George Junior, Obama has made a thorough mess of things, notably in the field of foreign policy, most particularly with regard to dealing with Iran and the infamous nuclear issue. In this he is merely echoing the standard republican line. Obama is being too mild, too tentative, too trusting, too naive, the usual claptrap. As if he, or anyone else who might have been president, could have levied super harsh economic sanctions on Iran for years, watch them retrench, dig in, and survive, and then expect them to capitulate when suddenly the sanctioneers turn soft and offer to come to the table. When you've already been put through the meat grinder, economically, and have survived, yes, you are interested in coming to the negotiating table in the hopes of getting the sanctions removed and restoring your economy. but no, you are not in a mood to capitulate to tough treaty negotiations; why would you be? you've already taken their best shot, short of invasion or bombing, have weathered the storm ,and have remained standing, if considerably. weakened. So what if the sanctions continue? You can make it clear that you are willing to budge, willing to compromise; but only to a certain extant. In short, no amount of tough talk, after years of hard economic times imposed by the people to whom you are suddenly talking, is going to sway you; you might as well stand up to the tough guys, and make a deal you feel you can live with, or make no deal at all, and simply keep going on in a state of economic deprivation. They won't dare initiate military action; if they did dare, they would have done so already, probably a long time ago. Anyone who thinks he or she could have brought the Iranians, who are already prostrate, to their knees with tough talk, is a wing bag, and nothing more or less. And let's not even get started listening to Bush 2 criticize Obama on his conduct of the extant wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the bush boys started those themselves, then failed to finish what they started. If you can't finish your own fights, don't complain about someone who can.

Healing A Civilization, Before It Dies

CIVILIZATIONS ARE LIKE MACHINES. The more complicated they become, the more likely they are to break down. But there is a big difference between machines and humans, other than the obvious organic, living nature of humans. Machines just sit there, broken and silent. People respond by withdrawing from reality (whatever that might be), going into denial. In modern America, our wealthy elite build mansions and surround them with iron clad fences, blocking out the world, blocking out the lesser levels of society, and sit inside with high def big screen TVs, amid other forms of hedonism and consumerism. The lesser sorts, the teeming masses, escape into cheap thrills and drugs. Entertainment is cheap in America, packaged and sold according to all income levels; escape is easy, escape is a profit making business for our corporate masters, who control our culture. Meanwhile, society's resources are spent and exhausted amid ever concentrating wealth, a new gilded age, until the hollowed out shell shatters and collapses. Ancient Rome went from a population of one million in the third century A.D. to about ten thousand in less than two hundred years, as the birthrate declined, and Romans fled the city, looking for opportunity, any opportunity, elswehere. When opportunity is not here, it might be elsewhere, and people flock into and out of cities as they see a better chance for survival - somewhere, anywhere else. The same happened to the Mayans. Fragmentation, decreasing efficiency, increasing disorganization and inefficiency of resource allotment, societal collapse. In America, the gilded age of the late nineteenth century was followed by the "progressive era", when society changed course, and directed more resources into areas where they were more needed. Corporate criminal behavior was regulated and outlawed, the income tax was introduced, wealth started flowing a bit more towards the working class, which produced it. Our hope now may well be the coming of age of solar energy, new technologies to improve our health and environment, and a growing awareness for the need for social activism. Societal healing is always possible, in spite of the lessons of the Romans, the Mayans, and others before and since. The question is: how sick does a civilization become, when does the healing start, if it ever starts, and how much healing takes place?

Looking At Ourselves In the Mirror

ACCORDING TO THE PSYCHIATRIC PROFESSION, over the past few decades, an increasingly large number of Americans display symptoms of advanced narcissism. People walk into shrinking offices, lie down on the couch, expecting to be treated, most usually, for depression or anxiety. They later leave having discovered that their real problem is that they are utterly insufferable. Symptoms include an exaggerated, unrealistic sense of self importance, a lack of real concern for the welfare of other people, self absorption, and a sense of entitlement which easily brings out anger due to a feeling of being neglected, underrated, or cheated by others. Sound familiar? Sounds like a normal, average American. Maybe it sounds like you. Everybody in America is a celebrity, a facebook twittering tweeting celebrity, with a long list of phony friends, and a proclivity to announce the most mundane features of one's life to the world as if they were of the utmost importance, as if anyone cared. Everyone is a celebrity wanna be, A Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, waiting in the wings, waiting to be famous for being famous. Becoming rich, quickly, and becoming famous, instantly, are listed by most Americans as their two highest priorities. In a culture devoid of any real community, we struggle to create our own, with ourselves at the center. We have become atomized, a culture of every man and woman for himself, with dwindling membership in civic organizations of all sorts, and an explosion of social media, where we can hide behind our computer screens, and promote ourselves, and encourage strangers to push the "like button". But all is not lost. People also indicate a desire to be of service to others. In any complicated culture, competing, conflicting forces exert influence, pushing society in whatever direction the accumulated forces will. Here's hoping that we Americans start spending more time at the communtiy center, and on our front porches, sipping lemonade with our neighbors.

Denying The Truth About Murder and Genocide, Barack Obama Style

NOAM CHOMSKY, distinguished professor of linguistics at M.I.T. since, believe it or not, 1955, and also a well known political activist, contends that every American president since World War Two was a war criminal, should have been impeached, removed from office, tried, and most likely convicted and hanged. Other than that, no complaints. Noam could probably take it back a bit further, say, back to Washington, but hey, Noam likes to keep it positive. Barack Hussein Obama certainly fills the bill. Any time a NATO surveillance satellite photo ops a bearded man in Pakistan with a small arsenal of small arms, the orbiter clicks a quick pic, and the boys back on the ground run a quickie analysis. If the shoe fits, and he's among America's wanted, neither the Christian nor the Islamic God can save his America-hating ass. Big O clicks on "delete", and into Pakistani airspace flies an all American drone, without Pakistani permission. Often, said drone finds its mark. Other times, no dice. But since these terrorist types tend to hang out with hordes of women and children, wives, mistresses, brats, all serving as convenient cover, collateral damage, as we like to cleanly call it, is usually considerable. Does Obama care? If he does, he doesn't show it. Of course, our laconic president shows little. His sister once reported that she had never seen him angry, nor depressed, nor much of anything in the way of inefficient emotion. But B. O> is very careful to avoid calling genocide genocide, whether it be his policy, or that of a favorite ally, say, Turkey. Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of the culmination of the Ottoman Empire's (Turkey's) slaughter of over a million Armenians. They got most of them, but, perhaps regrettably, not Kim Kardashian. (that's a joke). And, of course, to this day, they deny it, the way folks deny high blood pressure, Christians deny evolution, and conservatives deny global warming. Deny, deny, deny. It works! Obama will not use the word "genocide" when referring to the "unfortunate" Armenian mass disappearance during World War One. However, the good news is that the Germans, just yesterday, came right out and called the spade a spade. You can always count on our German friends to come clean. They now even admit that there was a bit of a problem regarding their Jewish community a while back. Well, at least somebody has the integrity and guts to tell the truth. Too bad it aint our American president.

Becoming Lighter Than Air; Trying To Retire, Being Laughed At, and Being Unable To Retire

DAILY YOU LIVE LIFE, you interact with people, and you accumulate resentments. A snub here, a slight there, and it adds up to stress. It proves to be more trouble than its worth. You can't remember exactly what happened with whom, who said what, or when, or why. Who do I resent, and who do I not resent? If you're smart, you finally decide to just throw it all out the window, quit worrying about it, and just love the shit out of everybody, without reservation or conditions. Its so very much simpler. Eventually, you complete a new accumulation of negativity, and if you're still smart, you purge all over again, and again, you begin anew. Just love the shit out of everybody, and don't worry about it. A steady storm of correspondences! #(1) said a poet. An accumulation of grievances, neatly packaged and prepared, always ready to be broken out for inspection and some form of use. For some glorious future retribution which never seems to arrive nor matter. God, it seems so trivial. God, what is it all for? What are patterns for?, said a poet.#(2) Wipe it all away, and you become lighter than air. On April 27, 2015, I turn sixty. Six weeks ago I walked into the office and announced my intention to retire on Friday, April 24. They said "yeah, whatevah". I shrugged my shoulders, and walked out. I had done my part, had given adequate notice. Six weeks went by, and nothing much happened. Business as usual, the daily grind. On retirement day, i walked back in after work, and said: "well, um, I guess I am now retired". I was half expecting everybody to jump out of a closet, yelling and laughing, and handing me a gold watch on chain, a glass of champagne, and some finger snacks. Instead, they said "dude, you're too funny. You sure know how to keep a good joke going". My mouth fell open. I suddenly realized that to them, the whole thing was a big joke. I said: "No! Really! I'm sixty years old, nearly. I'm retired, as of now!" More laughter. Dude, they said, you look about forty five, you act about twenty five, and exactly what in the hell are you gonna do? We both know you love this job, and that you have no life outside it. So, what's your point? I just shrugged my shoulders, and said, "OK, fine. I'll see you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... (struts in the petty pace from day to day, said the poet) (#3). Another poet, said "confronted with great merit, the only resistance is love." (#4) Why resist? why not just love?...................poet number one: Theodore Rhoetke...poet number two:Amy Lowell...poet number three: William Shakespeare...poet number four: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe........see y'all at work..

Fricking Fracking

THE GREAT STATE OF OKLAHOMA is now the earthquake capitol of the world, surpassing such quaking hotspots as California, japan, and the middle of the Pacific ocean. What's wrong with this picture? Isn't Oklahoma, deeply ensconced in middle America, supposed to be relatively stable and free of the shakes? True, it lay in fairly close proximity to the famed New Madrid fault, but, heck, that only becomes a problem every few hundred years, and, since historically there has been little human habitation or infrastructure in the Sooner state, and since the New madrid fault is close to everyone, earthquakes have never been associated with Oklahoma - until now. Now, at long last, the highly conservative government of Oklahoma, prone to do little other than preserve the status quo and attack the rights of gay people, has formely acknowledged that there is a problem, and that the problem is caused by the oil industry, and its recently invented practice of forcing oil out of the ground by pumping massive amounts of water into the ground at very high velocity. Folks in the middle of the state, who can remember never having experienced an earthquake, are now having several every day, albeit small ones. It all started a few years ago with a quake here and there, then increased to two a month, then two a week, and now, its shake rattle, and roll, to the tune of two or more quakes each and every day. So now it seems good Sooner folks can add earthquakes to a steady stream of tornados as their primary source of excitement. I live in extreme western Arkansas, just a few miles from the Oklahoma border. Three years ago, on a chilly, windy, November night, about eleven P.M., I noticed that the walls in my new ranch style house were sort of weaving back and forth, swaying visibly. I took it to be a resultt of the stong wind, and prepared to lose my home to a late season freak tornado. I went to bed, assuming that I would either live, or die. Next morning, a flicker of a thought entered my mind, belatedly. No, it couldn't be. I turned on the news, and sure enough, an earthquake had shaken my town, epicentered in eastern Oklahoma, about a three point five. Well, I always said I wanted to experience one, and I got what i wished for. Admittedly, I always assumed I would have to spend a day or two in southern California to get my wish. Maybe I ought to be a bit more careful about wishing, as the saying goes.

Trying to Figure Out American Foreign Policy, But Being Unable To

ONCE UPAON A TIME the United States and Iran were allies. Then, they became enemies. Currently, they are both; enemies on the Arabian peninsula, in the battle of Yemen,allies in Iraq, against the self proclaimed Islamic State. The self proclaimed United States of America was once the enemy of Iraq, but is now allied with iraq, against the Islamic State, which, as mentioned above, proclaims itself thus, and, since it thinks it is, therefore it is. At least, that was the criteria last time anyone checked, which apparently wasn't recently. The United States, Iran, and Iraq are all allied agaisnt the islamic state in Syria and while the United States and Iraq are allied against Syria, or what's left of it. Iran is allied with Syria. If this sounds a bit confusing, its beacuse, quite simply, it is. Most of it thanks to the foreign policy of the United States, which never met an alliy it couldn't turn into a friend, nor a friend it couldn't turn into an enemy. Let the confusion continue! The best guess is that the Islamic State is here to stay. Recruits are flocking to it from all over the world, and although some of them are being apprehended and jailed before they can get out of their home country, most arrive safely in that part of Syria and Iraq wherein said I.S.I.S. resides, where evidently they feel far more welcome and part of something bigger than themselves than they ever did at home. There must be a lesson in this, somewhere. Meanwhile, you haven't heard much about American airstrikes lately. That's because there isn't much to hear. They are ineffective, as usual. Hide underground until the bombs stop falling, then come out, and go about your business. Nobody seems to want to take on the self proclaimeer on the ground, and until that happens, nothing is happening. Considering current circumstances, it is becoming rather difficult to equate American foreign policy with anything other than sheer and utter chaos. Let the craziness continue!

Accepting My Subordinate Status, Albeit Reluctantly

MY HOME MORTGAGE, which was actually two home mortgages, was not exactly, shall we say, the sweetest deal on earth. I had a eighty-twenty, eighty percent first mortgage and twenty percent second mortgage, at eight and six percent, through the Bank of America. It started in 2005, when the market was hot, and dumb people like me were being lured into dumb deals by very smart, very large, very criminal corporations. But, I've managed to dig myself out of my B. o A. hole, and have gotten well ahead of the game, having already paid off the second mortgage. B. o A kept sending me snail mail offers to refi, then, when I applied, turning me down. But what would one expect from an organization which gets dragged into federal court several times a year, and fined heavily for fraud? The recent history of the financial services industry in America being what it is, namely, riddled with crime, failure, and public assistance, I thought it might be interesting to engage the nice looking young man with the Arvest name tag, siting in the recoup area post blood donation, in a friendly little chat. when he told me that my current lender, Nationstar, which bought my loan from the B. o A., was not likely to accede to my request to reduce my interest rate, because then they would have to do it for everybody, I bought it. But I shouldn't have. Hell, why not? Why not simply establish criteria, like, being well ahead on house payments, and giving a borrower with a well above market rate a break? They could, if they would. then, I got down. I pointed out the recent of large American banks gong to prison for various forms of creative financial fraud, and suggested to my nice young banker conversation partner that a bit of federal oversight, meaningful federal oversight not written by former and future employees of the financial services industry, might be in order. His response? that that might be all well and good, but that it would end up 'hurting the small banks", even driving them out of business, or, just as bad, rendering them easy pickins' for big bank take overs. Again, in the spur of my post blood letting moment, I nodded and smiled sweetly. total agreement, complete acquiescence. then, later, I was, like: what the hell? Federal regulation hurts small banks? No shit? Well then, why not simply write and implement regulations on banking practices which apply strictly to big banks? there's gotta be a way, aint there? but, I guess not- It just can't be done. there no solution, no power in the universe capable of making large American financial services corporations behave morally and financially properly, no way to avoid my problem, and the problem of everyone in the United States of Acquisitiveness who has not much money; the persistent condition of being owned, controlled, and exploited by the economic powers that be. All hail, Bank of America.

Being Told The Truth About American Wars, and Not Caring

MY SISTER, GOD LOVE HER, was a high ranking civil service employee at the Pentagon, with an office quite near the Secretary of Defense. He actually had an affectionate nickname for her, which I can't currently remember. Something like "muffin", I think. What would you expect from a man named "Rummy"? On that fateful tragic day, nine one one, the day Karma came to America, big sis got quite a jolt, and was actually thrown from her chair and across her office by the impact of the jet-bomb. Later she said to me: "I wish people would stop trying to kill me". Fair enough. Who wouldn't? Out of respect, I waited until the rubble had been cleaned up, the nation had quenched its excess hysteria, and my sweet sister had regained some sense of normalcy in her life, to the extent that one can, under those circumstances. Among my character flaws is a relentless need to speak the truth, what I believe to be the truth, insofar as I can ascertain the truth, if I ever can. Big sis was articulating what most Amricans at the time were: "those lousy bastards are just plain old jealous and resentful of Amrican success, prosperity, freedom, and yadda yadda." Finally, I could contain myslef no longer. Beloved sister, said I, (perhaps unwisely), nine one one did not occur because fanatical Islamic terrorists jealously and pettily resent American happiness. Nor did it have anything to do with any resentment of Christianity. They already know an infidel when they see one, and are for the most part willing to allow Allah to deal with blasphemy later on down the road, in His own time. Nor were the suicide killers insane. They were merely very, very motivated. Actually, their success in carrying out their dark mission is a testament to their intelligence, determination, organizational skills, and ingenuity, all the right stuff, all traits we Americans hold dear, unless some vicious enemy dares apply them to our detriment. No, the truth is, they did what they did because, strangley enough, they, along with many of their countrymen, tend to wax angry when a superpower sends its military halfway around the world, invades, attacks, conquers, and occupies an Islamic country, and pretty much destroys it, leaving it in ruins. The casualty list of as many as a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians didn't help matters either. I further reminded my sister that most people, given the same set of circumstances, would feel much the same way. I don't think I got through to her, and I don't think that concept has permeated the thinking of the American people as a whole. Amazing, what a potent combination patriotic propaganda and denial can be. Added to that is the undeniable fact that President George Bush 41, one week before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, told the Iraqi dictator that invading Kuwait was just fine and dandy, as far as the U.S.A. was concerned. Yes, that's right. we the American people gave Saddam a blank check to launch a war that, after a sudden inexplicable American change of heart, has resulted in twenty five years of terrorism, death, misery, I.S.I.S., and heaven only knows what else. For verificataion of this, type "April Glaspie" into google, and scroll down to where it says something like "transcript of discussion with Saddam". You'll note that when the lady Ambassador, the first ever from the U.S.A. to an Arab nation, told Saddam this, Saddam, as the transcript says, "smiled". So would anyone, in his situation. Bear in mind that this is all a matter of offical record, on tape, a state department transcript. Alas, if only we had told Saddam that we DID care, and had no intention of putting up with it. Well, America wanted war, war for oil, and that's exactly what it got, and exactly what it still has. But try telling that to my big sister. She just doesn't care.

Living In the Great American Fun House

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS live below the poverty line, and most of them are neither lazy or stupid. Millions more in the working and lower middle classes live paycheck to paycheck, struggling to pay mortgages and bills. They are, for the most part, neither stupid nor lazy. Those who live more comfortably are often deeply in debt, and not doing well digging out. It all adds up to a financially stressed, hence emotionally stressed society of fearful, angry people. You can see it in people's faces, in the way strangers look at each other with expressions of contempt, dismissive indifference, or worse. The joy isn't there, and neither is the love. Then there's the health factor. Most Americans are either overweight, out of shape, or both. One tenth of the population has diabetes, and there is an epidemic of cardiovascular disease and various forms of cancer. Tens of thousands of Americans have been victimized by crime and violence, ranging from identity theft to rape. Our many foreign wars of aggression have left tens of thousands more with debilitating injuries, physical and mental. Veterans hospitals are overflowing, with many waiting outside, the system unable to handle the demand. Twenty thousand murders, forty thousand automobile deaths per year. Factor in the divorce rate, well over fifty percent, with the accompanying emotional and financial cost, the victimization of innocent children; is anyone in this beleaguered country healthy and whole? Simply, no. Its a wonder we even have the energy to gin up our enormous hatred of minorities - blacks, Hispanics, gays, and so forth. Long standing staples of American society, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, keep marching right along. Our communities, such as they are, are pathetically inadequate to address any of this. Instead, we take it out on the rest of the world. The disintegration of America's communities is well documented and detailed in a marvelous monograph entitled "Bowling Alone", written by prominent Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam. Just when we need our social support systems more than ever, they have abandoned us, or rather, we have abandoned them. And so we escape into our big flat high def screens, with five hundred choices of vacuous, vicarious violence and stress; just what we need. We go online to post our shallow, inane messages to strangers, whom we pretend are our friends. We tell each other how much we like each other, but we ignore the true feelings of disgust and contempt. We have few face to face friends, fewer than ever, studies reveal, and we hardly know our neighbors, so we carefully list our Facebook friends, people we will never know nor care about. But they are n our list, and we have pushed our "like" button, which is the only button we have, and thus, they are our "friends". We beg them to add us to their list of friends, we trade lists. They friend us, we friend them. All with the click of a button on a computer screen. this, dear friends, is a culture of death, inexorably dying. This is a culture of illusion, the great American fun house. Somehow, strangely appropriate in a country which was named after a con man. If American culture were a horse, it would have been put out of its misery, long ago, with a compassionate bullet to the head.

Figuring Out Hillary, the Rush Limbaugh Way, and The Right Way

RUSH LIMBAUGH HAS HILLARY CLINTON all figured out. Just ask him. Hillary, you see, is exactly the opposite of the person she pretends to be. Everything about her, including, presumably, her make up, is a fraud. In the United States of Appearances, appearance trumping substance might in truth not be at all so uncommon, but Hillary takes it to a higher level. She is, points out El Rushbo, a woman of enormous wealth who seeks even greater wealth, and plans to raise two point five billion dollars with which to purchase the American presidency. All the while, Rush reminds us, she portrays herself as a champion of the "common man", or something of the sort. Also, every event in which she is the featured attraction is entirely orchestrated, down to the last photographer and crowd member. And so forth, and so on. Well, the truth is, Rush Limbaugh is quite correct. The question is: so in the hell what? Isn't that the way its supposed to work? Don't all politicians pose for the cameras, orchestrate their own events, and put on airs? Don't all of us, down to our tatoos, necklaces, and earrings, try to put out some sort of image? According to Rush, Hillary Clinton is nothing other than a phony liberal, a hypocrite, doing one thing and pretending to do another. But Rush really hasn't figured her out at all. The truth is far simpler: Hillary, quite simply, is not a liberal at all. She is a conservative, in a country in which there are two types of people; conservatives, aka "democrats", and ultra conservatives, aka "republicans". Real liberals wouldn't be afriad of words like "socialism" and "liberalism". They wouldn't feel the urgent need to replace those terms with the bland pedestrian word "progressive". And above all, they wouldn't avoid coming right out and encouraging the American economy to take direct government action to redistribute the wealth from the wealthy to the poor, as a means of expanding the free market by expanding the number of people involved in it. Since 1980 (R.Reagan, neoliberalism) we've been redistributing wealth towards the wealthy. When a real liberal comes along, even Rush Limbaugh, of all people, might be able to recognize it. Don't count on it though. In the United States of Appearances, a real liberal would likely be entirely ignored, run out of town, or well disguised, sort of a reverse Hillary Clinton.

A Brief Bar and Pickle Jar Saga

MANDY, BEHIND THE BAR, couldn't get the lid off a jar of pickles. I, sitting at the bar, offered to try. I, the would be hero, at sixty years old and one hundred and seventy pounds. Ignoring me, the bar keep with the flaming red hair handed the jar to the real big guy on the end.It was a Mason jar, the pickles home grown. Suddenly insane, seeing the big guy twist and turn to no avail, I got all bouncy, raised my hand, and repeated:" me! me!", like some fifth grader with the right answer. Meanwhile, big guy number one passed the jar to big guy number tow, to take his best shot. By the time big guy number three had failed to budge the lid, I was all over the bar stool, exhorting, pleading for my chance, sipping my second or third draw. Short little intellectual runts don't get a chance, not in country bars full of hard working blue collar men. When cowboy number four had taken his unsuccessful turn, my bleating had reached a fever pitch. Cowboy number five meekly handed the jar back to hot Mandy, who began beating on it with the handle of a butter knife. Again, no go. With all other possibilities exhausted, she handed it to me, as an after thought. Without the slightest difficulty I spun the lid right off, and handed it back to her. Immediately all the strong men started yelling excuses: 'no way he did that!". "She musta loosened it before she handed it to him!" Anything to save their strong armed faces, and to avoid giving credit to a little guy who probably shouldn't even have been in the running. Mandy just laughed. Dude next to me at the bar looked at me, and said nothing. I looked right back at him, and said: "maybe all y'all loosened that S.O.B. before I got a hold of it. maybe not. One thing's for sure, we'll never know." I was trying to fit in, to talk like them ole boys. I don't think it worked. I walked out, strutting, flexing my modest muscles.

Dealing Only With Whomever We Please

ARKANSAS SENATOR "tall" Tom Cotton is under siege from the nineteen million member army of Miley Cyrus, the former and forever Hannah Montana.thus spoke Tall Tom: "gays and lesbians should have a sense of perspective", or some such platitudinous drivel. So should we all, Tall Tom, so should we all. Thus, your comment is vague at best, meaningless at worst. Translation: queers are immoral, because they are offensive to my phony assed pretentious Christian morality, and they should go away, quit bothering me by existing, and stop complaining about bearing the brunt of Christian right wing discriminatory hypocrisy. Hypocrisy? Judge not. Love one another.My my, all that inconvenient Jesus of Nazareth talk. Republican law makers in culturally backwards places like Arkansas, Indiana, and other American states feign fear that their beliefs will be threatened with extinction unless they enshrine their beliefs in the law. The Ten Commandments on pillars, in front of capitol buildings. They forget that belief is a thought, and that no sure method of thought control has ever been devised, short of torture, brainwashing, and psychoactive drugs. but Miley's minions are on to the Cotton fraud,and are tweeting, voice messaging and facebooking Tall Tom to distraction. Tom, predictably, is pretending that nothing is happening. So would I, were I he, which, I am grateful to not be. Miley Cyrus understands what conservative Christians apparently do not: you can believe whatever you want, and nobody and no law has the power to do a damned thing about it. So why the rush to legislative bigotry, other than a perverted need to express hatred through the exercise power? The problem stats when somebody tries to codify personal religious beliefs in civil law, which, by definition, is secular. the fact that you sell a pizza to a gay person does not in any way indicate that you approve of homosexuality; it means, simply, that money from gay folk spends just as well as straight cash. You get paid, gay folks get to eat, and no law is required to affirm your right to believe and worship as you choose. Unless, of course, your true intent is to starve out the gay community. If we all acquire the right to refuse service to anyone of whom we disapprove, in a business which claims to be "open to the public", we will soon live in a nation of Christian only retailers, conservative only retailers, or only customers whose lifestyles and beliefs echo those of the business owner businesses. and that might be best for our self esteem, if not our gross sales and revenue.

Hating Gay People, and Calling It "Religious Freedom"

RIGHT WING AMERICAN RELIGIOUS WACKOS, of which there is no short supply, continue their angry, desperate rear guard screeching about their right to discriminate against LGBTs, aka "gay folk", or "alternative lifestyle citizens". They call discrimination "religious freedom". This certainly sounds a good deal more positive than its real name: "bigotry". And so what? Hell, let 'em exercise their precious religious freedom all they want, and just watch 'em go out of business. Brilliant business people, those right wing Christian capitalists. The Jesus, guns, and money crowd, killing their own sacred profit seeking capitalist business model with their very own bigotry. The rest of us, the sensible ones, can shop elsewhere. The fools would be humorous, were they not in such deadly earnest. Sane, secular, American civic society will go on its merry progressive way, leaving the religious wackos far behind, consigned soon enough to the trash heap of historical garbage. Only in Latin America is Christianity growing in number, and that only modestly. The world is, belatedly, becoming a more scientific, secular place. The best evolutionary path would be for anti-gay people to stop being anti-gay, and to jus go away and not give a damn. That'll take a while; our fanatical friends are simply not yet ready to handle meaninfgul cultural evolution. They are too emotionally captive to a religion whose Word of God commands that parents put disobedient children to death, and demands blood sacrifices; Isaac or a ram, either will do. Any god who gives explicit instructions on how a man should sell his daughter into sexual slavery is likely to hate gay people, and Lord only knows who else.

Not Texting, And Being Very Alone

I HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS. Well, I like to think I have a lot of friends. Many of them live fairly close to me, but many more are scattered all over the country. Almost all of them have been my friends for decades, people I grew up with and went to school with. I have few new friends. I rarely speak to many of my friends. When I do, its usually because I made the effort to do so, phone call or email, and I don't make much effort. My friends make even less. Friendship is difficult to define, exactly. Its a feeling, a state of mind, an opinion. Everybody has a smart phone, but nobody makes phone calls, and nobody answers them. Everybody screens everybody, and voice messages accumulate, unheard. Why bother to take the phone out of your pocket, wehn you can do it later, during a commercial? Smart phones are, have become text messaging machines. Refrain from texting at your own risk. You will be ostracized. No textie, no sexy, no talkie. People prefer the efficient immediacy of texting, both sending and receiving. Somehow you sense we as a culture prefer the avoidance or more direct, personal, intimate communication, such as voice to voice, or, heaven forbid, face to face. We prefer dispensing with amenities, courtesy, gentility. Hell, I dispense with all that stuff no matter what. I refrain from texting because there is a limit to which even I am willing to go to short circuit civility and enhance efficiency, a limit beyond which our society in general seems perfectly willing if not eager to go to that end, and that's goin' some. I keep thinking that if I start texting and join Facebook, all my friends will suddenly appear in droves, and we will make up for lost time. Conversely, I sense somehow that if I do not do these things, I shall slip farther and farther away from mainstream human "civilization", and will end up in a very lonely place.

Being Way Beyond Orwell, and Not Minding, Or, Perchance, Minding

THE MADNESS BEGAN IN EARNEST when President Richard M. Nixon needed enemies, and selected from a long list of candidates American teenagers who smoked marijuana and opposed the Viet Nam war. The war against young Americans intensified when Nancy Reagan, modestly endowed but brighter than her afflicted second husband, articulated her famous last thought: "just say no". Gee, how brilliant. From that rare moment of limited insight derived the great conservative crusade against nonconformity. It eventually swelled to include a two billion phone call database on primitive Drug Enforcement Agency computers, which the National Security Council, never inclined to miss out on any surreptitious fun, joined the game. Combined with the FBI's wiretaps of Dr. Martin Luther King making love to his wife, and the mutual office bugging of Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover, and the sheer amount of data our beloved American government has on us, what you have here is a regular science fiction novel, come to life. America is now way beyond anything George Orwell or Aldous Huxley dreamed of. Both writers are now venerated as prophets. We don't seem to mind.-----------but do we mind? Take, say, the most liberal, intelligent man in America, Noam Chomsky. Then, take one of your generic conservative presidential candidates, say, Ted Cruz. Polar opposites, in all ways, if ever there were such. Does either one of these gents want to live in a surveillance state, a police state, especially then they themselves are among the surveilled, just like, so it would seem, the rest of us? Probably not. What liberals or conservatives among us Americans really want to have everything there is to know about us known to the National Security Agency, or The F.B.I., or Experion, Equifax, The First Chucrh of God Almighty, AARP, or the dad blasted ACLU? I mean, hell. Don't we want, regardless of race, creed, gender, religiosity or policical viewpoint, want a certain basic freedom of privacy? To be left alone, if we should so choose? Hello? The right to be, if you will, forgotten? Maybe this is a good place to start, in terms of unifying America, the poor, the world. If we are living in Brave New World and 1984, or something even beyond that, and we are, are we not all of us the more poor, and should we not all fight against this apparent tyranny, all seven point two two billion of us??? Surely, with those numbers, we can compete with and ultimately bring to ruin that far away yet ubiquitous omniscient computer, which, after all, is only set on automatic.

Three Republican Presidential Candidates In One

TEXAS SENATOR Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker are all seeking the republican nomination for president of the United States. Ostensibly, three handsome suit and tie guys with thick, dark, neat hair, they are actually one and the same. The same person, projected holographically, using advanced computer technology to project the desired image to whatever location whereat he happens to be needed at any given time for the advancement of conservative causes and his fame, status, and political career. Marco Rubio Walker Cruz. Some kinda guy. One person, three names. Divide and conquer, eggs in different baskets. A political verion of the batman-superman-Sybil multiple personality syndrome. It works like a charm; when delegate counting time comes around, the three images can coalesce into a single, ultra conservative entity, scooping up support from all components of the far right; Tea partiers, the Christian Coalition, libertarian atheist gun toters, free marketeer profiteers, and all other loose conservative cannons. The corporate jet is always on the tarmac, fully fueled and ready to fly. A seventeen percent flat tax rate, lumping Bill Gates and Warren Buffet together with millions of minimum wage burger flippers in a fantastic version of financial fairness. And why not privatize social security? Isn't the stock market the very bastion of America's poor, always up, up, and away? Who could fail to appreciate? When the GOP debates begin, and all forty seven right wing wing nuts start ripping one another to shreds, a cleverly computed hologram will divide Rubio Walker Cruz into three, like Caesar did in Gaul. They shall all banter the same, stale baloney, as if they were the first to suggest that American government get out of the way of the wealthy, that the wealthy might enrich us all. Ronald reagan redux, without the simplistic metaphors, we hope. Rand Paul, meanwhile, will be forced to choose which third person to attack first; the one wearing the lapel flag pin, perhaps? Sarah Palin is fortunate to not be involved. It would only confuse her.

Extincting Golf and Football, American Style

THE TWIN TOWERS of American macho sport, golf, and non-soccer American football, are in big trouble. The former involves too few participants, the latter, too many. In the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies I played golf on a nice public course for a buck fifty a day, holes unlimited, a thirty dollar bag of serviceable clubs, walk and carry, no ride. Golf carts are for wimps. One day I played twenty seven holes, but I was fifteen years old, and didn't know any better. I'm glad I don't play now. If I did, I would be bankrupt, washing dishes in the clubhouse kitchen between rounds, living on Obamacare and Mecicaid. Too expensive, too time consuming. One million people give up golf every year in the United States alone. At the current rate, all golf courses will soon be overrun with weeds, devolving back into the wilderness whence they came. Rich white men are giving up the game; women, children, and minorities hardly ever even got started. Titanium golf clubs, longer and longer courses, ever more costly to maintain, monsters requiring constant nourishment, playable only by an elite few super athletes. Long gone are the halycon days of Scottish cow pastures of rough and fun, and wooden clubs with reasonable, non explosive performance specs. It turns out that high tech is a double edged sword, which can and does emasculate that which it is intnded to serve and improve. Meanwhile, American football once upon a time consisted of blocking and tackling; now, it consists of something violent called "hitting". Hitting means to main. And why not? what, other than main, do we do anywhere else in our depraved culture of violence and pain, where pain and death are televised blood sports, taking us far away from ourselves into a land of escape from our painful, super competitive, unfulfilling lives. When a sufficient number of should be perfectly healthy middle aged men are seen tottering down our streets, oblivious to their surroundings, maybe we will take notice, and turn our attention towards those who suffer, and away from the cause of the suffering. We will, but only because we will have no other choice. I love golf and football, always have, always will. What telling what I love is not the same thing as telling the truth about what I love. The truth is, two of our most popular American pastimes are in dire trouble, because of the direction they have chosen to take, probably will not long endure, and probably shouldn't, at least not in their present, perverted forms. They are directly derived from our current culture of extremes and excess; which, were it a horse, would long ago have been put out of its mmisery with an expedient bullet to the brain.

Making the Flat Earth Round, Biblically, Somehow

MY SIXTH GRADE TEACHER told our class to never discuss two things with anyone: as you might suppose,the subjects on her no fly list included politics, and religion, in no particular order. From the git go, I understood her reasoning, and knew that she made good sense, but sense has never assuaged my contempt for constraints. The two most interesting topics, placed off limits by the very lady upon whom I had a major eleven year old crush. The wide world of begats, thous shalt nots, Viet Nam, and Robert F. Kennedy. forever sealed off as if behind yet another adult-built barricade to knowledge. This was in 1966. The subsequent forty nine years have little to change my attitude; it is still not diplomatically expedient to broach the two taboos, which also happen to be the two best barometers of the individual mind. The years have only worsened matters. I know more, and have more to say. My fellow Americans, victims of a decaying culture, have ever fewer worthwhile responses,more arrogance, less openmindedness. So, I'm careful, to whom I speak, and what I say. Careful, but ever intrepid, and perhaps foolish. The idea for a survey sprang forth during a chat with a friend of mine, a local devoutly Christian librarian lady. A devout Christian, like everyone except me. I wanted to know whether she understood the implications of what seems obvious to me; according to the Bible, the world is flat. Nonplussed for a moment, she seemed to recover quickly, as from the urgent necessity of parrying an adversarial thrust. Her first rejoinder was that she could think of nothing in scripture explicitly stating that the world is flat, and she asked me if I could. And, she added, she knows her scripture. Game on! Accepting the challenge,a couple of days later I handed her a list. Her challenge had been met. I backed off, and watched. And waited. And waited. She stayed in her corner. Days turned into weeks. She had not had time to look up the passages I had supplied. busy with work, family, Bible studies, evangelical classes, church. She would get to it. Her faith took up all her time,time was dear, and my list of scriptural soundbytes would simply have to wait. The waiting continues. That's OK, I have plenty of time. All the time in the flat world, far as I can tell. If she does not come to me,I can politely go to her. Am I being unfair to shake the faith of a devout person by throwing in a little scripture ,mixed with its obvious contradiction of reality? I think not. The lady is a self described "evangelist", and as such, is fair game. The heat in the kitchen, and all that.

Defining American Exceptionalism, If We Can

YOU HEAR THIS TERM "American exceptionalism", and unless you happen to be a mind numbed right wing ideologue with a propensity to wear patriotism like a badge of honor, you wonder just what in the hell "American exceptionalism" means. True, the United States is an exception to much. United nations agreements and international environmental protection treaties come to mind. also, decisions rendered by the World Court and the International Monetary Fund do not apply to the U.S.A., if the corpoarte masters who run America decide that they don't. America excepts itself from much, most notably, international law. But is there any meaningful way in which the United States is "exceptionally" superior? Superiority is what the term implies, that, and arrogance. With regard to superiority, the term may not mean much. Obama had a funny way of putting it: "French exceptionalism, German exceptionalism, whatever." Obama the humble, Obama the humorous. The term seems to imply that the United States is indeed superior in some way, or thinks it is, and those who think that it is, to the extent that they think about anything, might be hard pressed to provide supporting factual evidence. In what way, exactly, is it superior? Exceptionally arrogant? Exceptionally violent? Exceptionally imperialistic? All of the above, beyond dispute. Otherwise, America is barely in the top ten countries in per capita wealth, barely in the top twenty in educational attainment, and not even in the top one hundred in overall quality of popular culture, as measured by intellectual and artistic level. As evidence, I give you the Kardashians. I give you American television. So much for economic, artistic, and cultural exceptionalism. Our American exceptionalism must remain tied to the concept of arrogance, the extent of our domestic violence, and the reach of our military might, as measured by global imperialism. Better yet, why not just conclude that the term "American exceptionalism" is vague at best, meaningless or dishonest at worst, and is best reserved for use by fawning politicians and sycophantic, prattling, talking right wing radio mouths. Unless, of course, an American baseball team happens to win the "World" Series, which, in most cases, seems like a good bet. At least America is exceptional at something worthwhile, at least, as long as teams from other nations, other than the Toronto Blue jays, are excluded from the competition.

Feeling Safe Around Guns, and Unsafe Around Earth Day Celebrations

SOME SQUEAKY VOICED TWENTY SOMETHING LITTLE GAL on ultra conservative hate talk radio, which is the only kind of talk radio available anywhere, has taken right wing insanity to a new level, if that's even possible, which, regrettably, it appears to be. She's a conceal and carry gal, but only because she lives in California, and those damned California liberals won't let her pack her smokewagon openly. She would, if only she could, she says, and you'd better believe her. In fact, she wishes everyone, all the good people, would do likewise; pack and conceal, or preferrably pack and display. She says that when she sees some stranger in a convenience store with a hip hugging piece, she feels better already, because she knows that somebody has her back, somebody is on her team. How she knows this is a matter of pure conjecture, or perhaps "wishful thinking" would be a better term. It doesn't matter who the stranger is; anyone with enough sense to carry a firearm in plain sight has just got to be a "good" person, with impeccable judgment. The bad guys all go with hidden guns in their jackboots, or switchblades, like in "West Side Story". All good people should be openly armed, and all openly people are good people. Makes perfect sense, if you happen to be a right wing member of America's lunatic fringe. But instead of wisely stopping there, stopping the madness, and changing the subject, she goes on. The real threat to American public safety, she contends, is not millions of well armed good people, but rather, animal rights advocates and April 22 - April 22 being Earth Day. Treating animals with compassion, and trying to save the environment, those are the real threats to our way of life. Thus babbles the squeaky voiced cute little thing with a heater bigger than she, and thus babbles her right wing ilk, all too often. Five'll get you ten the lady drives an oversized SUV, aggressively tailgaiting the unwary, and is divorced at least once. Beware, and run for your life! Those who would encourage us to protect the planet and treat animals humanely never hesitate to show their weapons. Those handmade protest signs proclaiming "Earth first" and "End Cruelty to Animals" hurt when they slap you in the face outside vivisection laboratories.

Running For President, and Believing In Yourself

IN ANY GIVEN AMERICAN presidential election, there are, believe it or not, more than two candidates running. More than a few. In fact, far more.On any given ballot you will of course seethe democrat and the republican at the top, both representing the one dominant political party, the party of property, the party of ownership, the party of wealth. the usual tweedle dee and tweedle dum. then, a bit further down,you might see a third party candidate, someone with virtually no chance to win, but who will get several million votes, usually called the "independent" candidate. In some states, if you're really lucky, you'll even have a chance to vote for a green party candidate, or a socialist labor party candidate, or maybe just a worker's party candidate. And that's about it, at most. Your real choice boils down to corporate candidate number one, and corporate candidate number two, tweedle dee, and tweedle dum. Nobody else has ever become president, and likely nobody else ever will.When they say that your vote is meaningless, they mean what they say. But in fact there are hundreds of other candidates. Already, there are over two hundred presidential candidates signed up for 2016, which is about average, with more probably to come. there is a bus driver and political groupee in upstate new York whose hat is in the ring, and he vows to balance the federal budget on his first day in office, somehow. then there's the substitute school teacher out in Wyoming who has simply had enough. And don't overlook the nice young lady in Kentucky whose husband dared her to put up or shut up, and she decided to put up. she'll be a bit short on money and campaign time, however; her day job, down at the donut shop, comes first, as do her four year old and her eight year old. And the list goes on. Most of these invisible office seekers tend to be conservative libertarians sorts, especially when the incumbent is a democrat; when a republican is in office, out come the environmental crusaders and anti-corporate crusaders for social justice. they have one thing in common; they are truly great Americans, and they have ad ream, albeit a rather remote one. For the most part, they will never be seen on television, heard on radio, or appear on any ballot. You will never hear of them. but there they are, bravely running, offering themselves as alternatives to the great American political power structure, at least trying. And for that, we should be grateful. We can't say we never had a real choice, only that our choices were not real. It is surprisingly easy to run for president in the United States of Advertising. the easiest way is to simply declare your candidacy, and go for it. Maybe something in the classified ad section, maybe a few knocks on a few doors. maybe a few friends and family members to write you in, and make you feel, if not really appreciated, at least notice by someone. In order to actually become president you must be at least thirty five years of age, a natural born citizen, and felony free. That's all, according to the constitution. In reality, you have to get wealthy people to give you a billion dollars, and swear to heaven that, if elected, you will pay back your wealthy benefactors. That's the way Obama, and all who have come before him, have gotten it done. but you needn't be honest, intelligent, or even sane. photogenic appeal is mandatory, or fast becoming so. the "official" way to enter the race requires only a bit of paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission, and, if memory serves, a reasonable fee. So there you have it. Your pathway to the White House is laid out before you. And remember, if you happen to choose to run, will, at least, have a good story to tell your grandchildren, and the pride of knowing that at least you offered your services, at least you tried.

The Workers Are Rising Up

GLORY BE! HALLELUJAH! Wonders, it doth seem, shall never cease nor desist. All across America's fruited plain, our corporate overlords and masters, such indisputably magnanimous legal proto-human entities as Mickey Dees, Wal mart, and Target, are bestowing a veritable monetary cornucopia upon the lowest of their working class poor. The advent of the peasant class is at hand; the masses are rising. Wages are going up and up. Up from sevent twenty five an hour to eight or even nine, with promises of more to come. (always the promises). From minimum wage to just barely above minimum wage. The previously beleaguered masses will have nothing more to complain about, their prayers are being answered. Surely, at long last, the wailing and gnashing among the unappreciative poor will cease and desist, wondrously. If you can't afford to raise your kids and rent a trailer on eight fifty an hour, you just aint tryin'. Put the spouse right nxt to you at the burger joint grill, throw in a few lawn mowing gigs for the kids, and there you have it! A two bedroom eight hundred aquare foot efficiency apartment conveniently located right down the street from where you work, zoning law-free, surrounded above and below by kindred spirits in like units, everyone sharing a concret slab rec area and laundry room, but individual bathrooms. Folks moving in and out, adding cultural diversity, the chance to meet new people, but only after long hours of well remunerated labor. Ah, the beauty of life in the complex; EZ mart, pawn ship, and pay day lender all within walking distance, ready to do business. Shred the welfare state! Who needs it? Disband, by force if necessary, all labor unions. Who needs them? Certainly not our beneficient corporate owners and shareholders. All is well in America, the masses have risen, our masters are beneficent, and the would be rabble rousers can now all go home, at long last, and take their annoying complaining with them.

Compromising With Iranians, and Christians

MY, OH MY, aren't we a compromising, conciliatory bunch, we Americans. Actually, we really are, or, once were. The late eminent historian of the American south, C. Vann Woodward, pointed out that on several occasions the act of compromise allowed the United States first to come into existence, then to remain in existence. The very structure of American government is a shining example of the spirit of compromise. North and south, large states and small, federal, state, and local federalism. When you have a national constitution which divides power equally between three branches of government, and again between an upper and lower legislative body, you have compromise. When you have a national constitution which defines an African-American as three fifths of a human being, you have compromise. The very term "African-American" represents a sort of compromise - a compromise of identity. On several occasions, most notably in 1820 and 1850, with two Missouri compromises, compromises delayed the War Between the States; but they did not prevent it. Perhaps nothing could have. Compromises do not always work. We have sadly become a nation in which achieving compromise is more painful than pulling teeth with string and a door knob. Just as the American middle class has polarized into rich and poor, so, it would seem, have our opinions. Yet there is hope. We Americans seem to be able to reach a compromise with Iran concerning nuclear weapons; we can keep ours, and they cannot have any. Most Americans are in favor of this arrangement. Those who are not, one might suspect, are simply unwilling to accept anything that president Obama has anything to do with. If Obama had tricked the iranians into surrendering their entire arsenal, nuclear and conventional, the Obama haters would be up in arms, because Obama did it. Nonetheless, two countries can still compromise, and the United States can still be one of the countries involved, barely. We must remember that in a good compromise, nobody is supposed to be happy, but everyone is supposed to be tolerant of the arrangement, if displeased. And maybe,just maybe, we can find a way to soothe the Christian minions of America into believing that nobody is threatening to alter, abolish or, heaven forbid, compromise their beliefs, while giving them their precious right to have nothing to do with people of whose sexual orientation they so devoutly disapprove.

Defending the Right To Be Stupid

I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DO, or to not do, business. This is especially true if I happen to own the business. I can close up shop anytime I want, and reopen it when the person with whom I do not want to do business has driven safely away. No shoes, no shirt, no service. If you're gay, go away. Either prove that you're a Yankee fan ,either by verbally proclaiming your fandom, demonstrating a knowledge of New York Yankees history, or by reciting their current roster, position by position, or your burrito never comes out of the oven and onto your plate. Shouldn't all private enterprise owners have the right to do or not to do? For all practical purposes, don't they? Why limit our God given right to discriminate to discrimination directed at gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people, couples or triples? Why base the right to discriminate on some esoteric personal religious belief based on some primitive, intolerant religion? Why not base it on a basic human right, the right of free association or non-association, on entrepreneurial prerogative? Certainly discrimination of any sort should be outlawed in all public realms, as it is. After all, we all pay taxes, unless we can get away with not paying them, we are all citizens, whether in good standing or otherwise. But in the private sector, let bigotry ring, and for any business owner stupid enough to discriminate against any potential customer of any sort, let the cash register freely not ring! Every business owner has an inalienable right to destroy her or his own business. If you enter my business, and can't prove that you're a baseball fan by reciting the winner of every world series since 1903, the beer you want to buy from my store, oh non baseball fan, stays in the can, man, and you gotta get a new plan. If need be, let us enact a new constitutional amendment, as follows: "The freedom of choice being fundamental to a free enterprise society, no government, state, federal, or local, shall enact any law infringing on or prohibiting the free exercise of discrimination in any private business or private activity". Now, that'll show those do gooding bleeding heart liberals what's up, and it'll stirke a blow for the cause of freedom; the freedom to be a reprobate or self destructive idiot.

Making Sense of Religion... Somehow

THERE IS A REFERENCE BOOK, the "Encyclopedia of World Religions", and there is a veritable bunch of 'em; religions, that is. Something between 750 and eleven thousand. They all have one thing in common; they are stark raving crazy, with absolutely no basis in verifiable reality. Stupid crazy. They make no sense at all, none of them. Except, maybe, pantheism, or deism, the religion of America's founding fathers, and of eighteenth century intellectuals, like Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Why should religions make any sense? They were almost all invented centuries and millenia ago, back when humanity knew even less about the universe than it does now, which isn't much. If the Christian Bible, for example, is the "word of God", then God is either a liar, very uneducated concerning basic cosmology, or a very merry prankster. In the first place, the real world isn't flat, and it isn't immobile, standing upon pillars. Stars are not shiny ornamental trinkets, attached to the "vault of heaven", which can fall to earth and crash, like Christmas tree ornaments. Even recently invented religions, which one might expect to be a bit more sane, are crazier than basketball bats. Dude digs up some golden tablets in upper New York state around 1820, attracts a following, as all nut cases somehow seem to, and proceeds to get kicked out of every state between New York and Utah, where the group finally settles, only because nobody else of European descent is living there, or wants to. Granted, Salt Lake City turned out to be a beautiful place, if a bit slow on a Saturday night. And let us not forget William Miller and the "Millerites". The world was scheduled to end in 1843, but didn't. All over America people liquidated their assets, and gathered on hilltops on the appointed date, which Miller had ascertained by the usual method; adding up all the begets in the Holy Scripture. Long about day break everyone went home, either relieved or disappointed, depending upon the particular mental dysfunction of the individual Millerite. They had to start over, from scratch. financially. You can't take it with you, and they didn't have to, but they didn't have much to keep either. Miller Amended his math, and set the date for October, 1844. Again, a bust. You know what they say about doing the same thing more than once, and expecting a different result. The second time around, however, far fewer people sold out and waited atop hills. We can take some consolation in that. More recently, let us not forget that kool aid drinkers of Jonestown, Guyana, in the late seventies, with the late Jim Jones, ascending to heaven rather than hanging around and facing a congressional inquiry. Then there were the folks of the "heavens gate" cult, followers of the reverend Applewhite, who died wearing clean white clothing and new running shoes, lined up in bunk beds, awaiting the arrival of a spacecraft of some sort. The lunacy never ends. How many of these cults are functioning in America even now, not including the biggest one, which has millions of adherents? The lunacy never ends, because human frailty, human emotional needs never end, human gullibility never ends. But couldn't we at least, if we must have religion at all, invent a religion which makes a modicum of sense? How about the "first church of the four forces of nature"? Or perhaps, the "god of the trillion galaxies". Or maybe even "The relativistic church of the unified field of quantum mechanics, reformed." Something! anything" Or maybe just take a cue from Albert Einstein, a nominal Jew, who really wasn't, who said: "my religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. I cannot conceive of a personal God who would sit in judgment over creatures of his own creation. Morality is of the highest importance, for mankind, but not for God." And there you have it. simple, elegant, sensible, with reverence for a sane and sensible God. But that's the problem, isn't it? It just make too damned much sense...

Restoring Religious Freedon Where it Already Plainly Exists

INDIANA AND ARKANSAS, United States states, are chock full of right wing Christian legislators, and that is a sure recipe for excitement, and perhaps even a bit of highly entertaining lunacy. Both states, accordingly, recently passed something called "Restoration of Religious Freedom" acts, under which business owners will have the right to refuse service to potential customers whose religious views or lifestyle choices differ from those of the owners, and the owners find disgusting and unacceptable. The new laws are basically designed to allow busineses owned by heterosexual christians to refuse service to gay folks, without being subjected to accusations of discrimination, but we seem to be pretending that this isn't the case. Presumably, however, an atheist could refuse service to anyone who believes in God, or a devil worshipper could refuse to do business with anyone who isn't. What a way to run a business! Soon as the pushback/uproar began, and the wealthy elite celebrity owners of really BIG businesses started to complain, the governors of both states backtracked on their support of the craziness, and expressed a desire for the laws to be rewritten, carefully pointing out that they were never intended to foster any sort of discrimination, somehow or other, but only to restore religious freedom to America. Something similar to these laws was signed into federal law in 1993 by President Clinton, but that was then and this is now, the torch has been passed to a new generation of aggravatingly tolerant young folks, and the national statute has largely been ignored, much like all inconvenient federal laws, such as anti-trust laws, marijuana laws, and financial regulations, are ignored. The notion that religious freedom, meaning the freedom of Christianity to dominate and control American culture, has in any way been compromised is, shall we say, borderline ludicrous. There is still a christian church on every corner, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one, and there have been no reports of any of them being locked up, burned, or boarded up by any local law enforcement officials, federal agents, or roving gangs of atheists, pantheists, Moslems, or Jews. Stay tuned; in the great fun house that is life in these United states, you can just sense that the fun has only begun.