Denying, Instead of Changing

HOW MANY WAYS CAN WE SAY "DENIAL"? How many glaringly obvious facts can we deny, in other words? We start, perhaps, with global warming, aka "climate change". You simply cannot pump half a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, and leave it there, without some kind of effect on the weather. Period. But boy, do we ever do a good job of pretending that we can. At least some of us do. Humans are too small to impact nature, say the global warming deniers. Nothing is wrong with the environment, they say. Pure fantasy. Pure denial of reality. Rather remindful of the good folks who to this very day deny evolution by natural selection as a fact, a truth. The numbers here are amazing. The persistence of religious dogma is strong friction to change and acceptance of reality. Ditto conservatism in general, with its resistance to change. Next thing you know, they'll tell us that there's nothing wrong with the American economy, and its distribution of income and wealth. Evolution by natural selection, and human selection, is all around us, and always has been. We should all celebrate it, and our belated awareness of it, thanks to Charles Darwin, rather than quibble over it. Sometimes people simply find out how something works; Darwin did a bang up job on this one. Isn't that something to celebrate, to embrace, rather than to reject simply becuase it conflicts with our previously held, less valid beliefs? We must always be ready, able, and willing to change, and to accept change. This is the crucial shortcoming of all religion; failure to embrace change and personal paradigm growth. So, let's all take the plunge, and hop on that global warming evolution bandwagon, and while we're at it, let's stop pretending that anybody other than we normal human beings write books or alter the climate.

Going Liberal with Ear Rings and Necklaces

NEBRASKA, AMONG THE MORE CONSERVATIVE states in the union, has repealed its state death penalty, and now, surprisingly, thirty two states no longer have capital punishment. Surprisingly, because for decades America has been primarily conservative on this issue, which led to the death penalty being reinstated by the Supreme court in 1976, after an earlier respite. So now we are heading into more liberal waters, and perhaps preparing to join the ranks of more civilized countries; after all, only a handful of nations even have a death penalty, and many countries which most Americans consider less advanced than the U.S. have long ago abolished it. It seems plausible that within a few years all fifty nifty will have abolished state sponsored murder. Or perhaps putting someone to death isn't murder, if the victim of capital punishment has committed a heinous enough crime. Words. Definitions. But all too often innocent people have been put to death in the United States, and all too often executions have turned out to be cruel and unusual in their manifestation. Gay marriage, legalized marijuana, and repeal of capital punishment are sweeeping the country; could it be that the liberal side is beginning to win the great culture war? Maybe so; these days, even conservative men often wear ear rings and necklaces.

America the Angry; the United States of Anger

THE HUGE POST GAME FIGHT involved the Brigham Young football team, all of it. Every player, coach, and assistant. It was a bloody, brutal brawl, worthy of neanderthals, not human beings, certainly not students at a religious institution. Human beings, after all, despite nearly ceaseless violent behavior, have somehow managed to create something quite fragile but beautiful called "civilization", with its intellectual triumphs of science and art, but which seems always in jeopardy, but somehow manages to carry on. But no surprise, really, that the brawl should take place among the angry population of the most aggressive nation in Earth, the United States of Aggression, in the world's most violent team sport, on television. That was last fall. The American people must have secretly loved it. Its no secret we love violence, the more vicarious and bloody, the better. Brigham Young University is where the cleanest of the clean cut, most moral, most disciplined, most Christian young scholars go for education, preparation, and inculcation of the highest christian moral values. Just ask them. And yet, this. Never have so many angry violent Mormons been seen live on network or cable or satellite TV. One rarely sees even one angry Mormon, let alone dozens. And that doesn't even include the crowd, or BYU faithful watching at home. They must have felt the anger too. The other team was Memphis University; southern, black, inner city kids. Probably a fair amount of pent up anger, and, one suspects, some mutual ethnic and cultural mistrust. Found a country violently, live violently, die violently. And why not turn it into a for profit spectator sport, in the land of the almighty dollar?

Electing Bernie Sanders

BERNIE SANDERS made it clear that his running for president is no token effort, designed only to attract attention or provide the electorate with an alternative. He really wants and intends to be president. And stranger things have happened, though its been a long time. Several suggestions might halp Sanders. First, he has to try to overcome the brainwashing bias that most Americans have against the word "socialism". He is already doing this to an extent, by calling himself a "socialist". If a person can make it to the U.S. Senate using that self description, well, who knows. Let's face it; we are all, to an extent, socialists, in the truest sense of the term. Doesn't just about everybody support local fire and police departments? Does anyone believe that these crucial public services should be privatized? No? I didn't think so. And who among us hasn't benefited from driving down well maintained city, county, state, or federal roads and highways? Sure, we have a few potholes here and there, but, for the most part, our socialistic American road system works marvelously well. Bernie needs to him 'em hard with this kind of logic. Also, Sanders needs to round up an army of the very young to use as his base. A new American revolution. The same people who are bringing about the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage, obviously have political clout, and that is Bernie Sander's potential base. Break up the big banks, raise minimum wage, redistribute the wealth through tax policy, free college for all, a more Europeean style American economy. Most Americans are far more compatible with Bernie Sanders than with, say, Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush, but they haven't figured that out yet. Sanders coud attract a lot of support for this kind of approach, in an America in which free market capitalism obviously does not work for tens of millions of citizens. For Bernie Sanders to become president would be strange, but, at least once or twice, stranger things have happened.

Wanting To Pay Our Own Bills

YOUNG GUY GETS MARRIED, has a coupla kids, tries as hard as he can to support all that, works hard, comes up short, way short. He feels desperate, so he robs a bank. Spends ten to fifteen in the pen. Meanwhile, his ex wife and family marry a rich guy, and begin a new life. The kids turn out well. When the bank robber is paroled his former family are like strangers. You think he hasn't paid for his crime, hasn't paid enough? He has? OK, fine. Then why does Christ have to die on the cross to atone for the sins of the bank robber? What goes around, comes around. We all agree on that. You reap whatever you sow, says the Bible, as well as common sense. And that all seems to happen right here, in this world, in this life. Christian crucifixion theology seems redundant, like double jeopardy. Many if not most human beings end their lives having, on balance, done much more good than harm in the world. For that, they generally are quite acceptable, most likely, to God. Or so it would seem. This is true, even with all the misery and "evil" in the world. Most, if not nearly all people, are basically "good". And we all seem to believe, because we all see, our actions and their consequences. So why stage a symbolic, gruesome event on a wooden cross? Besides, is that what we really want - for somebody else to take the rap for us, to die for our sins? Don't we, down deep, as honorable beings, want to experience and accept the consequences of our own actions? don't we want to stand up like brave beings, and take what's coming to us, without someone else doing it on our behalf? Down deep, we want to pay our own bills, and we do.

Trusting America, If Possible

WHEN THE UNITED STATES B52 bombed the Chinese embassy in Sarajevo back in the nineties, President Clinton apologized, and explained that it was an accident. The Chinese cooly accepted the apology - they need us, economically, as much as we need them - and ignored the "accident" explanation, understandably, perhaps realizing that once Clinton concocts a lie, he sticks with it. Allegedly, the Air Force was using outdated maps, and thought they were bombing an enemy ammo depot, or something. Thus we begin to see, perhaps, why another country might be a bit, shall we say, "uncertain" whether to trust the United States. One might not be terribly surprised that when Raul Castro shook hands with President Obama, promising better Cuban-U.S. relations in the future, big brother Fidel admonished "do not trust the Americans". As an American, the best advice I could give any non-American when dealing with Yankees is "be careful". I mean, let's face it: many's the native tribe which thought, repeat, "thought", that it had secured permanent title to its lands, by virtue of signing a treaty with the United States government. And many's the drug dealer who thought he was making a big sale to someone who suddenly turned out to be an FBI operative. And then, the biggest laugher of all: President George Bush actually told Saddam Hussein that the United States did not care if Iraq invaded Kuwait. Yeah, sure. And don't forget, before Edward Snowden spilled the beans, the U.S. government swore up and down that it was not conducting electronic surveillance spying on its own citizens. Now that was a real whopper.

Becoming a Product For Sale, Cheaply

FIVE OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST banks, including Citigroup and the Bank of Scotland, were convicted of crimes just the other day, and fined several billion dollars. Ho hum, what else is new. These five big banks were caught conspiring to manipulate international currency values, communicating in code, meeting in secret chat rooms, and so forth, believe it or not. Regular spy thriller material. Business and Finance professors will tell you that the penalties they paid were ridiculously low, considering their wealth, and the heinous magnitude of their crimes. But, of course, the financial services industry is regulated, to the extent that it is regulated at all, by members of the financial services industry, who go back and forth between government work and working within the industry. A real corrupt incestuous arrangement. Every few months the Bank of America gets hauled into federal court and pleads guilty to fraud charges, pays hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, and walks out happy. What a system. This is only part of the reason that the American people, or at least about fifty million of the poor ones, need to get out in the streets and start a revolution. The entire American economic system is owned, controlled, and operated by the very rich, for the very rich, with the other ninety nine point nine nine percent of us mere units of consumption and marketable commodities. Just remember; when you joined facebook you did not become a "customer" of facebook. You became facebook's product, facebook's merchandise, to be sold to the highest corporate bidders within the advertising industry. Isn't that lovely? Don't you just love unwittingly, voluntarily turning yourself into an item for sale on a store shelf? Makes you really feel empowered, doesn't it?

Progressivism, marching On

AGAINST THE STONEWALLING SLUGGISH barricade of entrenched conservatism, progressive America marches on. Liberalism always prevails ultimately; change is inevitable. for example, former Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, now the head of the Boy Scouts of America, said in a speech in Atlanta that the Boy Scouts, and by extension everyone else, needs to put its anti gay bias behind them, and create equality of opportunity. he received a standing ovation when he said this. One wonders what would have happened had some radical gay rights activist delivered the same speech to the same audience. gay rights continue to sweep the country, against conservative opposition. The Environmental Protection Agency, a favorite target of free marketing conservatives, also received a boost, as president Obama signed an executive order giving the agency the power to regulate about sixty percent of the nation's waterways. Conservatives are already screaming about executive over reach; they want private property owners to have an absolute right to control their own land; even if it means doing environmentally harmful things to it. No property right is absolute. Undoubtedly there will soon be a republican attempt to rescind Obama's order, and doubtless it will fail, because the United States, despite all its flaws, is a reasonably progressive country. As they might say in Colorado and a few other places, Praise the flag and pass the marijuana.

Having Rand Paul, At Least

REPUBLICAN LIBERTARIAN SENATOR RAND PAUL fruitlessly and futilely spent eleven hours talking his head off on the floor of the U.S. Senate, trying to stop the renewal of The patriot Act, God bless him. Rand might as well have done his best Jimmy Stewart impersonation. Thus he shoots ahead of Jeb as my favorite republican running for president, though he's gotta lotta catchin' up to do with Hillary and the great Bernie Sanders. We the American people do not want the Patriot Act, we just don't know it. We're mindnumbed with fear, or something. Rand is trying to tell us that in a government as big as the American government, a bureaucrat with bad intentions could use the spying system for evil purposes, as you can imagine. I've heard perfectly intelligent well intentioned American citizens say that since they personally have nothing to hide, they don't mind the government listening to every phone call they make, as long as it keeps the country safe from terrorism. I want to tell them that this completely misses the point. He who would trade a bit of liberty for a bit of security deserves neither, don't you remember? In most futuristic dystopian big brother science fiction novels, such as Brave New World and 1984, the masses generally do not mind being owned and controlled by big brother, as long as they are warm and safe. And so it seems to be with us now. When Edward Snowden heroically revealed to the American people the extent of their helpless subservience, we the American people should have instantly risen up in a fit of outrage and put a stop to it, and reclaimed our liberties, out in the streets, violently, if necessary. Like Jefferson said, the tree of liberty must sometimes be nourished with blood. Instead, we demur like sheep, because we are warm, safe litlle sheepish beings. But at least we have Rand Paul, in there fighting for us, albeit hopelessly.

Texas Chooses Fracking Over People

NOT ONLY IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA owned and controlled by its corporate masters, so are all other governments in the United States of Acquisition: state, local, you name it. By now everyone in Texas should know this. If you move to Texas, there is a decent chance that you will end up with an oil well in your yard, or close to it, that you will neither own the well nor benefit from it, and that there is nothing you can do about it. Just ask the good folks in Denton. They passed a city ordinance banning oil well fracking from their city limits, and the oil industry went straight to Austin and instructed its employees, including the governor and state legislature, to do something about it, which they promptly, being good employees, did. The Texas state government, aka "the oil industry" passed a state law denying cities and towns the right to pass any ordinance prohibiting drilling for oil in their city limits. Ironic, that the state which is supposedly so libertarian and opposed to government tyranny, has allowed the state government to run over local self determination. An executive representative of the oil industry industry said "some people are just opposed to oil and gas. maybe they should ride their horses to work." Gee, how insightful. I'd be happy to ride my horse, if that particular oil industry spokesperson would be kind enough to walk directly behind my noble steed.

Living In Denial In the United States of Amnesia

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA, we the people are prone to denial of reality, and tend to much prefer escapism, even if only into the vicarious life of some strangers down the street. The United States of Kardashia. Why don't we take this opportunity to all catch a clue; note, the self proclaimed Islamic State, as we like to call it, is here to stay. Or rather, there to stay - there being in Iraq and Syria. American airstrikes are not going to magically kill off the Islamic State. There is no force on Earth with enough cahonies to eliminate it. If there is, who? The United Nations? NATO? Like, I am so totally sure. We Americans deny our present as well as we deny our past; largely, by simply not caring. It is amazing how many of us have seemingly bought into this nonsense about terrorists targeting the United States only because they are resentful and jealous of our glorious free market prosperity and Christian piety. Left out of the chain of events is the annoying fact that the United states tricked Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait twenty five years ago, then used the Kuwaiti cause as a pretext to plant a firm military foot in the oiliest region in the world. And there our foot remains, stuck deep in the mud, unable to either get deeper in or extricate itself. Ironic, that in the years since, so much oil has been discovered everywhere else, particularly under American soil, and fracking is so effective in extracting it, that military control of the Middle East simply isn't as important, oil wise, as it was in 1990.

Power To The People

It can be very dangerous to be a blogger in the Islamic world. In most Arab countries, anyone found to be blogging about secularism, atheism, or free thinking is likely to get in very big trouble. Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Iran, are all very intolerant of non conformist internet speech. In China one can say just about anything about any religion on the internet, but heaven help anyone who criticizes the government and is found out, with blog linked to warm.Repressive government generlaly are very quick to limit or curtail freedom of speech, but this is very difficult to do on the internet, which is why the internet is perhaps the greates tool for subversions and civil disobedience ever invented, a great potential threat to authoritarian governments. You might even expect all authoritarian governments to be brought down by the intent, eventually. You might even expect that eventually, an online organization of the world's poor people would form, and growing like kudzu, engulf the world, organize, and deprive the wealthy of their property. One just never knows. For the wealthy to remain wealthy would be much more tolerable if everyone, rich or poor, had equal political power, such as, one person, one vote. such as in a true democracy. Alas, such is not the case. Money buys political power, like a billionaire buying a political candidate. True democracy can never exist with enormous economic inequality.

An All American Shoot Out

AS THEIR NAMES WOULD SUGGEST, the big Texas shoot out between The Banditos and the Cossacks and the cops, a three way event, did not involve any African-Americans. It involved good, hard working, patriotic Americans, probably mostly very conservative, and a lot of guns, alcohol, music, and loud talk. A lot of anger, which, from all indications, had been building, growing, in plain sight, steadily, predictably, week after week, for a long time. Money talks, and dozens of free spending men once a week is simply too much for a roadhouse to turn down. But this nightmare has nothing to do with ghettos or racism. This is main stream America, amigo, with all its anger, arrogance, and weaponry. Just guessing, just about all the gang members profess a devotion to Christianity and to the American flag. and of course to freedom, the second amendment, and so on, and so forth. No left wingers allowed, with their damned big government socialistic atheist, anti capitalistic gun regulation. Is there a motorcycle club somewhere in America for liberals, socialists, or atheists? There seem to be a million motorcycle clubs in America, and they mostly appear to be European-American in membership, and these motorcycle clubs usually seem to glorify being tough, and ready to fight. As of now, I have never heard of any namby pamby left wing intellectual free thinker motorcycle clubs. For that matter, are there any African-American motorcycle clubs/gangs in America? Or have they all been exterminated? Has there ever been one? Would African-Americans living in inner cities who could afford motorcycles bother to form gangs? Why do motorcycle owners form gangs, but not automobile owners? Is there a Pontiac Vibe gang anywhere? I kinda doubt it, somehow... The "Banditos" must be Latin American. Are the "Cossacks" really Russian, or merely European-American caucasian? According to standard conservative ideology, we are all better off if "good people" carry guns, steadfastly defending themselves, the second amendment, the American way, and who knows what all else. So, were the guys in the Banditos and cossacks "good guys" or 'bad guys"?

Dealing With Conservative Wrath

IF YOU'RE A LIBERAL, pay close attention to conservatives. If you get angry, ask yourself why. Do not look for ways to disagree with them. Try to find ways to agree with them. Conservative talk radio is a good place to start. They spend a lot of time talking about liberals and liberalism, which they describe as "the left". By listening to their explanations of liberals, you can ask yourself whether what they say applies to you, is true about you personally. Such as: as a liberal, do you really want to disarm everyone except criminals, and do you really want to kill babies? You'll be accused of these things, and worse, if you identify yourself as a "liberal". They appear for all the world to be looking for ways to disparage liberals, and to be avoiding opportunities to speak of liberals in a positive way, or to present liberalism as complimentary to conservative or even remotely valid. All these conservative talk radio voices seem angry, and filled with hatred. Also, you cannot avoid hearing the arrogance, the condescending attitude, as if someone dispensing truth and wisdom from on high, and being very full of himself. You want to ask yourself if you deserve all the anger directed, apparently, at you. There seems to be a high level of anger in American discourse these days. Higher anger level, and much higher level of arrogance. Flipping through all five thousand television channels on a normal American television set reveals a steady stream of beautiful, arrogant, angry, stressed out people. Then too, there's the denial. Denial of environmental destruction, of evolution and science, of the holocaust, of whatever. Simply state the truth, and if we Americans (humans) don't like it, by golly, we'll deny it.

The Proper Use of Drones

I'M SURE I WASN'T DREAMING. I wish I had been, but I wasn't. It must have been on National Public Radio that I heard about some eight year old american kid walking to school with a drone hovering over his or her head all the way there, and presumably, all the way back later in the day, for protection purpses. I swear I heard that. Dud was either thinking about droning his kid, was about to do it, or was already doing it. Helicopeter parent to the max. To do more the parent would have to actually accompany the child to school. Is this where we're headed? Shockingly, the answer appears to be "yes". You can already see it; all upper middle class American kids, with a drone hoverning just above the head, all day long, day in, day out. Or perhaps they could be turned off and stored in the cloak closet during school. If some bully kid walked up to your drone covered child on the sidewalk and gave him a shove just for spite, what would the drone do? Laser the aggressor in half? A quick tazer-like shock? Such is the stuff of which future tort lawsuits shall be made. Soon our skies will be filled with drones delivering pizza, photographing crime scenes, hoveringly observing public places keeping watch over them, and serving as companions to people out for a stroll. All things considered, its probably a better way to use drones than sending them into Pakistan to kill Taliban members and, all too often, their friends and families.

Getting Rid of Big Brother in America

GOOD PATRIOTIC AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE republicans like Speaker of the House John Boehner and presidential candidate Florida Senator Marco Rubio believe in "smaller government". Or, they say they do. What they believe in is a more market driven, less cooperatively planned culture - lower taxes, fewer business regulations, fewer welfare programs - what they like to call "smaller government", as in "get the government out of your lives. Strangely, interestingly, both of these men, and many of their good patriotic conservative republican colleagues are in favor of extending the Patriot Act, and allowing the Nationsl Security Administration to keep right on monitoring all electronic communication in the country. How strange. If the government spying on everybody isn't "big government", what is? Boehner, Rubio, and folks like them claim that tracking every phone call made by every American is a great way to protect America from terrorism, and that if we stop the domestic spying on us all, dire things will doubtless happen. Sounds suspiciously like 1984 and Brave New World. We are living in a science fiction novel of a country, with big brother overseeing us, and many of our leaders applauding big brother. Obama's plan, of having corporations keep the spy records rather than the government, except when the government asks for them, is ridiculous, and an insult to our intelligence. As if that 'solution" would change anything. Let's stop the big brother routine, and take our chances with the terrorists.

Electing Bernie Sanders

WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE very badly need to elect Bernie Sanders President of the U.S.A., because Bernie is a socialist, who favors the poor, and most of the American people are, alas, poor. It is very difficult to enact policies which benefit both the rich and the poor. Rich and poor people simply do not often have common interests, as they would have you believe. Usually, one or the other gets cheated. And unless you've been living on teh planet Mars throughout human history, you know exactly which group, rich or poor, has generally made and benefitted from public policy. Its particulalry bad in the United States. Our founding fathers established a system of control by the wealthy elite, but they naively assumed, or hoped, that the wealthy would do well by the poor. By 1792, five years after Madison's republican constitution went into effect, Madsion himself, its primary author, regretted it, because he could see that America's wealthy weren't going to do a damned thing for the poor, in any spirit of national unity and pride, other than exploit them. In 1787 America's wealthy elite were large land owning men, people such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison. Today, its the large corpoations who have all the money, and all the power. In the United States its worse today than ever, in terms of exploitation of the poor. Barack Hussein Obama is, at the end of the dog goned day, about as good a corporate spokesperon as most of those crazy republicans. Obama, bought and paid for by his wealthy corporate employers. Bernie Sanders aint like that. He don't take no money from large corporations, allegedly. He supports minimum wage increases, real, socialized, national health care, progressive taxation, and much greater economic equality. All of those things favor the poor. The republicans, the party of the rich, are dead set opposed to all of them, naturally. Hillary Clinton, like her husband, is, alas, a corporate spokesperson. Not Bernie Sanders. Economic inequality wouldn't be such a horrible thing, if it weren't exactly the same thing as political inequality. In a democracy, a poor person should have as much political power as a rich person. In America now, candidates purchase their political offices; thus, our plutocratic government. Bernie Sanders would change that, with help from tens of millions of us poor folk.

Lacking Respect

THEM TWO CRAZIES who messed with the wrong rednecks the other week in Dallas and paid for it with their lives are being described by friends and family as true, loyal, patriotic Americans, America firsters all the way. And yet they were both apparently rather recent converts to Islam. Often times members of religious or ethnic groups who are widely despised within a country try to gain acceptance by being very patriotic. In Both world wars, in midwestern America, German immigrant families painted their houses and businesses red, white, and blue, and flew the stars and stripes with gusto. Many Jews early in Hitler's rule tried to show conspicuous loyalty to Germany. People want to be accepted. You wonder what might have happened had there been any chance for a dialogue between the Mohammed drawers and the two angry Moslems in Dallas. They could have started by agreeing on their love of America, and from there, who knows what might have been possible? Maybe the leaders of the let's draw the prophet Mohammed crowd would help if they would emphasize that they have no particular antipathy towards any religion in particular, they simply resent being forced by their politically correct countrymen to respect what they do not respect. Isn't that the jist of it? Terrorism is not nurtured or promulgated by the internet, or hatred of Christianity, or anything other than lack of respect. Mocking another's religiosity is certainly not respectful.

Thanking Edward Snowden, Again

EVRYBODY IN AMERICA knows that every phone conversion is listened to and recorded by the government, as well as every financial transaction and bodily function. Kind of like a science fiction novel, or Russia. We know this, and we accept it, take it for granted, even though we only found out a few years ago. And just think, we have Edward Snowden to thank for all this, wherever he is, ihding somewhere in Russia, from the United States government. Seems to me he is more of a hero than anything. he should be allowed to come home, and resume a lucrative cafreer, with the blessings and thanks of we, the American people. Snowden warned us of the perfidy of our own government, which, in America, is herioc. Finally, an American court of law has had the gumption and obvious good sense to tell us what we already knew, or sensed: its illegal what the government has been doing, spying on its own people, all of them. Now, the question is, what is going to be done about it? President obama favors a plan under which all this information would be kept by a private corporation, A T @ T or somebody, and that it be given to the government only when the government asks for it. Evidently this lame "solution" is advocated by many in Washington, so it may come to pass. But what good would it do? It would change nothing. It just goes to show you what a corporate spokesperson Obama is; just as much as any republican. Better to force the government to throw out all the information it has, and promise not to ever collect it again.

Leaving St. Louis

"AN EVENT" is going to transpire soon in suburban St. Louis. Nobody knows for sure the exact or even approximate nature and date of this event, but that an event of some sort is going to happen seems certain. Not one but two toxic waste dump sites are located right next to each other, both largely underground. One of them contains radioactive waste from war wer two, the Manhattan Project, which was never cleaned up, and the other, of a conventional sort, is on fire, and has been for about four years. As is that weren't wnough, the fire in the conventional dump is heading straight towards, you guessed it, the nuclear site, and thus everyone agrees that an "event" of some sort is inevitable, maybe within a few years if not months or weeks or days or hours. In the immediate neighborhood, which is residential, there is a high rate of cancer, and the smoke from the fire keeps kids indoors for play; you have to wear a gas mask to go outside. Why anyone is still living in this neighborhood, much less the St. Louis metropolitan area, is anyone's guess. Things haveing to do with denial, job security, ana property values, presumably. Tell you what. I don't know aobut you, but I think I'd either be gone by now, or on my way out. Jobs and houses are replaceable; not so with cancer afflicted kids. Strategies are now being discussed, which include such crazy ideas a building a wall to block off the advancing fire from the nuclear waste, and so forth. the bad news is, none of them make any sense. the good news is; at least we know about this nightmare, and can start to do something about it, like getting the heck out of there. Aint it great to be alive during the industrial age!

Leaving People Out Of Our Disdain

ONE CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE what on earth might motivate a group of folks in Dallas, Texas, to produce an event consisting of a contest to draw the prophet Mohammed. They did it to make a point, right? Some, um...point? The point should be obvious, one would think, but, strangely, to me, it isn't. We don't have to acquiesce to this damned political correctness of respecting other religions, or something like that. If we don't like Islam, we can say so anytime we want! Or some point like that, or something. Hell, who knows...descriptions of Pam Geller describe her as "anti-Islamic", which brings to mind the question "what's the point"? Its like anti-black bias or anti-Texas bias or what not - why leave anybody out? Why not inculcate a good, simple, across the board, misanthropicism? In other words: hell, hate everybody! The fact that Pam Geller turns out to be gorgeous enhances my wish that whe would drop all the anti-Islamic nonsense, and pay a whole lot more attention to me. Like that'll ever happen. Confronted with logical refutation of their most cherished beliefs, people simply dig in, harden their resolve to persist in error, and they do not tend to start paying attention to me. Oh well. Alas, we dwell in a world of superstition and error, a world in which people believe God speaks to us in books which claim the world is flat, and motionless. Whatever Pam's problem is, she'll have to work it out by herself.

America, Somehow, Surviving

FIFTY YEARS AGO everybody thought America was going to hell in a handbasket. The country was divided over the Viet Nam War, civil rights issues had folks out in the streets, all kinds of unrest and turmoil. I was just a kid, and utterly fascinated by it all. Keeping up with the weekly combat casualty list fronm Viet Nam was just another baseball related activity, which never failed to generate numbers, and never had an off season. American history strongly suggests that throughout it many if not most people believed that the U.S.A. was going to hell in a handbasket. It always seems to be. In 1967 I thought that by the year 2015 everybody on earth would either have starved to death, or would be living on Mars. I wasn't sure which. What impresses me now is that whereas America is still going to hell in a handbasket, and has been, seemingly, since time immemorial, it never seems to get there, and that might be a good thing. This crazy system we have now of somebody purchasing the American Presidency every four years for an ungodly amount of money is, well, incredible, and would be hard to believe if it weren't really happening. A relatively small group of hugely wealthy powerful corporations own and control just about everything in America, and yet we, the American people, seem largely unconcerned, as long as we get our crumbs. Obama paid a little over a billion per term, Hillary is promising to raise two point five billion, and Jeb Bush has over a hundred million as the starting point for his money race, and he hasn't even announced that he is running for president yet. The idea of actually doing something about this insanity doesn't seem to cross our collective consciousness. But, likely as not, it'll all get worked out, somehow...

Giving Our Great Grandchildren Half A Chance

SURVEYS INDICATE THAT AMERICANS haven't the first clue how to save water. The answers almost always have something to do with shorter showers or less lawn watering, turning off the water while brushing teeth, and so forth. But the real answer, dear fellow citizen of earth, which we all know and pretend not to, is in the toilet. The answer is to not flush as often. Feces and vomit only. Pee is a no flush proposition, unless it gets to three pees. Three pees, and you flush. three pess you're out. We Americans are so totally hung up about what comes out of our boeies that we don't even want to talk about it, and we keep building smaller and smaller and more efficient toilets instead of just..doing..what is obvious..you might wish to start using the "toilet", au naturell, in your backyard, and showering but once a week like they do in France, but that might also seem a bit extreme. And that isn't a criticism of the French; we Americans are obsessed about showers and baths, requiring at least one a day. Every hour on the hour enough energy comes pouring down on us from the sun to provide enough energy for the entire world, running full blast. Easy, free, energy. Makes you wonder why so many fossil fuel companies don't seem to be all that fanatically fired up about this obviously perfect idea; start using solar energy, then, the cost of energy needed to purify ocean water will be next to nothing, and we can have all the fresh water we want, plus, we can keep the ocean level down in so doing. Also, of course, we can then eliminate all the extra carbon in the atmosphere, save the planet from runaway global warming, and give our great grandchildren half a chance.

Reducing the Size of Government, While Increasing It

WHAT WE HAVE ALL LONG SUSPECTED turns out to be true. Congress passed the "Patriot Act" over a decade ago in a hysterical response to nine one one, to the toppling of the trade towers. It gave the American federal government much expanded powers of surveillance, particularly surveillance of its own citizenry. Or perhaps the Patriot Act wasn't so much a response, as an excuse, an excuse, in the name of "the war on terror", an excuse to finally establish and put into place, once and for all, the great American police state. Quite a chain of events. George Bush 41 encourages Saddam to invade Kuwait, the U.S. becomes involved in the middle east more deeply than ever, and the corporate masters succeed in gaining vast oil resources, great personal wealth, and absolute control over us. Simply ingenious. And the American Police State has vastly abused its powers by spying on the American people totally above and beyond the powers granted to it in the Patriot Act. A federal court recently demonstrated this sad fact. Our big brother has in fact, during the last decade, found out everything there is to know about all of us, and has all that info stored, organized, and ready. This is beyond anything in "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley or "1984" by George Orwell. This is the real thing, here and now. Interestingly, nobody seems to care all that much, as if the body politic is a great slumbering beast. Fascinatingly, the Patriot Act's staunchest defenders are the most conservative, anti-big government republicans, like Senators Tom Cotton and Richard Byrd. How, exactly, Senators, does the Patriot Act reduce the size of government, gentlemen? These small government conservative republicans want to cut spending and government bureaucracy by reducing or getting rid of welfare programs for poor people, and they don't want national health care, because they believe in "small government", but they want to turn America into a police state, and already have. And that certainly is not "small" government.

Meeting In the Middle Class

I HAVE GROWN QUITE TIRED of hearing about the American middle class, the plight of it, and so forth, ad nauseum. For one thing, it no longer exists, or barely does, so why bother talking about it? Our pandering American politicians love the term "middle class", and they endlessly extol its virtues and express the most profound sorrow at its current, plight, blah blah blah, pandering to voters. and of course, they all have the very best solution to every conceivable middle class American problem. Smart move, really, since most Americans think of themselves as members of the mmiddle class, members, in other words, of some great amorphous, virtuous masss of citizenry to which shockingly few of them actually belong. Rich and poor alike deem themselves to be members of this mythical American class. The truth is, most Americans more properly belong to something which might be termed the "poor working class", because they live paycheck to paycheck, even if the paycheck is decent, which is usually isn't, they have much debt, and little or no savings. Doesn't sound very "middle class", huh? Why don't we start talking about the bottom of the pyramid, which is the poor rather than the middle class, and how to pull it upward to a more middle class level? Do we want to bring down the wealthy to the level of the poor, like socialists, or do we want to elevate the poor to the level of the wealthy, like capitalists? Maybe we could split the difference, and agree to meet in the middle.

Fulfilling Our Corporate Masters Intentions For Us, Or...

OUR PRIVACY FENCES protect us from our neighbor's social onslaught, neighbors we've never met, and never will. We are well hidden behind sunglasses and tinted windshields. Our text messages provide a convenient barrier to direct communication. Our childhood friends, the ones we played sandlot baseball with in the nineteen sixties, are long gone, and we never bothered to replace them. Our isolation is complete, just the way we wanted it. Nonetheless, something is mmissing, and I wish I had written down exactly what is missing, several weeks ago when I wrote down everything up to the word "complete." You just can't let 'em lie fallow too long. I like the idea and come back later to develop idea method, but, it has its limits, and must be used properly. What's missing, you would think, and it seems obvious, is a sense of community. Facebook can only do so much. After millions of years evolving with our friends and family close by, right next to us, face-to-face, it is difficult to transition to a virtual world. But we must continue to try, because transitioning to a virtual world is evidently exactly what our corporate masters intend for us to do, and, by all means, we must fulfill our corporate master's intentions. That is, if we want to have even the remotest chance for success in the corporate owned and dominated mainstream world. Our only chance, our last, best chance to end corporate tyranny, is the creation of an international labor party. More properly, a poor people's worker's party, internationale', unconstrained or restricted by any national governmental entity.

An Open Letter to the Government and People of China

YOU ARE TRYING TO CONQUER the world, economically, and replace the United States as the world's lone super power police officer. That fact can no longer be denied by keen eyed, percipient American observers. Awaken, my fellow Americans, here come the Chinese, to take our places. We Americans owe you Chinese trillions of dollars, which we don't have. Will you settle for California? Your tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in developing countries tells us your intent. Helping the poor, are you, after the fashion of your communistic, socialistic, community oriented philosophy? Or, are you more like my United States, building an empire while pretending to help the poor? Perhaps you Chinese leaders should read "The Tragedy of American Diplomacy", by William Appleman Williams, and avoid making the same mistakes we did. Those mistakes have a way of coming back to haunt you. When, for instance, you support a brutal dictatorship government in a small country merely because the dictator claims allegiance to your cirporate superpower country, complications can arise. Do not repeat American failures in Viet Nam and Latin America. A wealthy China runs the risk of concentrating its wealth among a very few, elite people, as does the United States. If this happens, the Chinese people are not likely to remain subservient and obedient, while they live in poverty and their overlords and master live in opulance and splendor. Share the wealth. Share the power. Sincerely, T.L. Reconciler

Racism In America; Denying the Obvious, Easily

AFRICAN-AMERICANS FOUGHT FOR AMERICA during the Civil War, and during World Wars One and Two, among others. Each time, when the war was over, they transitioned right back into their former lives of segregation, discrimmination, and exclusion in post war, victorious, grateful America. Truman finally ended segregation in the military after World War Two. Kennedy issued an executive order requiring minority hiring. About time, eh? Even as we speak, income and wealth among American black people is but a fraction of that among American white people, and most or all of it has to do with federal American government housing and hiring policies. In a word; racism. Fast forward to today's conservative America, and our brilliant conservative leaders and would be leaders tell us that the only racism in Today's America is the type being invented and sold by people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who make an industry out of it. All these "incidents" involving African-American perps and European-American law enforcement officers are mere flukes, anomolies, which have nothing to do whatever with any widespread racism in America. Brilliant scheme: exploit their talents and patriotism, treat them like an underclass, then deny that they are being so treated. Here, in the great American fun hosue that is the United States of Amnesia, we simply imagine the world the way we would like it to be, and we live it, denying any and all evidence to the contrary. Can you imagine electing someone president of the United States who believes that racism, global warming, and evolution are all liberal hoaxes?

Presidential Candidates, Saying Funny Things

DOCTOR BEN CARSON will prove to be a most entertaining addition to the mad men and women running for president. Some of his statements clearly reveal his lunacy. Consider this one: "Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to this country since slavery". He went on to say that Obamacare is actually a form of slavery, because it enslaves the American people to the government health care system by law. How can anyone fail to be amused and entertained by this kind of talk? And just think, the great spectacle has just begun; most of the talking is still to come. Dr. Carson also indicated that he believes homosexuality is a choice, since there are examples of men who enter prison a heterosexuals, but are gay when they are released. He really said that. later, he apologized for it, which indicates that he sometimes reflects on his comments, which could spoil a lot of fun for the rest of us. It could get real conservative this time around out there on the olde republican campaign trail, as all the right wingers try to outdo each other for the party base. Of all the republicans so far in the race, all believe in cutting social programs such as social security, medicare, and medicaid, and they all believe that global warming is a liberal hoax intended to steal money from the wealthy. So you begin to imagine how delightfully, humorously entertaining this wacky crew is likely to later become.

What's the Point?

ONLY TWO PEOPLE were shot and killed at the recent Dallas, Texas prophet Mohammed drawing contest, which is a miracle, considering that the place was inundated with angry, aggressive, well armed idiots. Idiots? Look, everybody knows, when you live in the United States of America, and you feel you must ostentatiously project hatred in order to prove to yourself or somebody else that you have first amendment rights, you're an idiot. In this great country we all know we all have freedom of speech and response, and we prove it by using it, all the time. Why flaunt it? Why not just use it intelligently? When I was a kid, I secretly supported the anti Viet Nam War protest, and wanted to join it. I was smart enough to keep my opinion to myself. I finally got my chance at war protest in 1991, enjoyed every minute of it, and to this day I remained amazed at being able to do such a thing, namely, walk down the street with five hundred other people, carrying a sign reading "no war for oil" - and not get hit, shot, or thrown in jail. I knew before, during, and after the anti-war protest march that I had the freedom to participate, freedom of speech. We weren't exercising our freedom of speech just to insult people by drawing forbidden pictures, we were trying to stop a war, to stop the killing. What is the point of "good" Christians deliberately insulting the Islamic faith? We are fortunate that more people weren't killed, and we the people of the United Sane States of America sincerely hope that our conservative Christian friends stop doing insane things trying to make stupid, self evident points.

An Open Letter To the Russian government and People

What we need ,above all, is an international political pary for the working poor, to eliminate poverty, and to break the monopoly and tyranny of the wealthy in international political power. Power to the people. As the arctic melts, our two countries, among others, are going to compete for its resources, and I would be willing to bet good money that my country is going to win. There's just something about that special feeling which comes with being an American. That feeling of impending, ultimate triumph. One way or another, the wealthiest one percent of the population is going to control the arctic, the resources of the world, and they are going to own almost all of it. Unless we unite and do something about it now. We the Poor People's @ workers Political party can and must. Shouldn't most of the world's population be eligible for membership in the poor people's party? More, much more, maybe. The poor people have the power, if they choose to exercise it. In human history, no system has ever been designed to give power to the people. Now is the time. Sincerely, T. L. Reconciler

Getting In The Race

THE G.O.P. FIELD is getting more entertaining by the day. the token republican African-American and the token republican woman candidate have now joined the show. The most entertaining is going to be Mike Huckabee. And he could be the winner. He has a gresat sense of humor, and does not come across as malicious when debating opponents. All of the half a dozxen candidates, and there are many more to come, want to avoid attacking each other, and go after Hillary and Obama, but that won't last long. Soon enough, all these upright, conservative christian types will be at each other's throats, and that's where the real fun begins. it is truly a far right aggregation of talent, farther right than we ahve seen in years, and the entry of Bernie Sanders on the democrat side adds a strong left wing component to the 1916 presidential campaign. Most of these republicans want to eliminate the I.R.S. and the federal income tax, eliminate or fail to raise minimum wage, eliminate the federal reserve, and eliminate all federal bureaucracy related to education, human welfare, or the environment. That might not be the best formula for winning a national election these days.

An Open Letter To the Government and People of Iran

DEAR FRIENDS; As an American, permit me to apologize for the rudeness of many of my fellow Americans towards you. As neither a Christian nor a Moslem, I sometimes wonder why so few people emphasize the common core of the two religions. Let's jsut say that we all worship the same God, or that we all worship a different god, and leave it at that. Religious strife is uttterly unnecessary, juvenile, unworthy of our better, enlightened selves. Surely we can all agree that we want a world without atomic weapons. Those things aren't safe no matter who owns and controls them. Maybe the United States intends to either talk or coerce everyone else out of their nuclear weapons, and then get rid of their own. Who knows? Please understand, the forty six American Senators who sent you that letter advising you to ignore President Obama because anything he does will be overturned later - they were lying. The American people will respect and uphold your agreement with President Obama. The reason the very American Senator Tom Cotton is harassing you is that he is obviously insane, which you can plainly see. In other words, he is an extreme religious and political conservative, which is dangerous for anyone. Extreme religious and political conservatism is dangerous because it is fanatically devoted to resisting change. Change is necessary for progress, and surely we can all agree that much progress is needed to eliminate povetry, war, and disease everywhere. May the forces of change in America and Iraq unite to create a better world for all. Sincerely, T.L. Reconciler

Talkin' Tom, At It Again

TALL TALKING TOM COTTON, freshman U.S. Senator from Arkansas, is at it agin, and you begin to think he might be at it a long time, since he'syoung, motivated, and popular among America's right wing neanderthal crowd. Trash talking, again, is Tom. Harmful, unproductive, unprofessional, undiplomatic B.S., again. And to think, this clown has a law degree from Harvard. He'd be much better off, as would the rest of us, if he's just shut up, and go away, but that aint gonna happen, not until he is publicly disgraced, alla Joe McCarthy. For Talkin' Tom to shut up would be a violation of the laws of nature. First, he backstabbed President Obama, committing treason by writing a letter to the Iranian government telling them that Obama, in the middle of sensitive treaty negotiations with Iran, is totally powerless and irrelevant, since anything he does will be undone later. Undermining the President of the United States in the conduct of foreign policy is treason, isn't it? Now, Talkin' Tom has descended to a new low, trolling on the internet, looking for trouble. He is having a twitter-tweet war with the Iranian foreign misiter, who himself has spent much time in the United States getting a very good education. Tom started all the troubleby responding to a reference the Iranian diplomat made during a speech in teh United States. Talkin' Tom Cotton seems to be very angry, and to live to make trouble. Perhaps he should have pursued a career in the ring, and should go up against Floyd mayweather. The Iranian foreign minister correctly identified Cotton-mouth as a loudmouthed bully who should study internationl law and diplomacy a bit more closely. Tom keeps slinging slander, calling the Minister a coward, challening him to a debate on the U.S. Constitution, aounding every bit the belligerent, arrogant, narcissistic American right wing religious nitwit fanatic. An incredible national embarrassment.

Going Back To School, Old, And At Home

HIGHER EDUCATION is transitioning from brick and mortar to the internet. This transition, and its ramifications, is the topic of discussion on "The End of College", by Kevin Kerry, who uses the term "the university of everywhere" to describe the phenomenon. Just recently a sixteen year old boy from the middle of nowhere in Outer Mongolia took an online class offered by M.I.T., got a perfect score in the entire class including the final exam, and is now physically on campus in Boston at M.I.T. as a full time student. His exact program of study is unknown, but possibly includes higher math, medicine, classical literature, or rocket science. then, who knows? On to save the world, most likely. In another few years someone in his position might not even have to leave Mongolia and travel in person to live on campus at M.I.T. in order to achieve all this. Ah, the many wonders of the computer age. Anything seems possible. For some years now my plan has/had been to work hard, save money, then retire at sixty and go back to college, and learn like hell. maybe computer studies, programming, web site design, whatever. Sociology and psychology classes, definitely. Also, German and Russian, and maybe a smidgeon of Italian. Just the other day I turned sixty, retired, and my plan now is to enroll at the University in the fall, and get started. may my journey be long as glorious. I am, like, soo totally excited. My question is; how much time will I spend in physical classrooms on physical campus, and how much time online, in the comfort of my own lovely home? who knows? I certainly don't. I'm sure I'll find out though. Maybe a combination of both would be best, some time at home, some time on campus. somehow, though, I have the distinct feeling that in the future we are going to be seeing some very, very educated people, all over the place. And how can this be other than good? Rest assured, though, that if there is any way to derive evil from this modern marvel, we'll find it.

Thinking Maybe War Isn't the Answer

MAYBE ITS MICROWAVE RADIATION, and cell phones. Food additives, perhaps. plastic containers are suspect. or maybe its just that most Americans are overworked, sinking further into debt, angry, frustrated. America is a land of alpha males, where is in charge, and must be.hence, our anger. Our cell phones fill us with distant love, and frustration. So often when two American strangers approach and pass each other on the street, there is n o eye contact, no communication, or, when there is, it is cursory, pedestrian, unfriendly. Few smiles are exchanged out on the street, between strangers. A highly competitive society with highly competitive people, because we are taught, trained, brainwashed into being that way. Despite lame attempts by mealy mouth liberals to soften our education indoctrination with such brilliant innovations as no win no scorekeeping baseball, we the America people still rank high on the global scale of competitiveness, in a competitive world. We have a few winners and many more losers. You can actually imagine, in America a civil war between the rich and the poor. You can imagine this because we know it has happened before, with striking regularity, on various scales. Rich Britain and the poor colonies. The rich north and the poor south. The bonus army of 1932, with their cute little invasion of Washington D.C.. Not at all uncommon. But, for the moment, American society strikes me, and maybe other people as well, as angry. maybe some of our anger has been vented in all these many wars we have launched adn lost over the past few decades. problem is, paying for these wars in the future, or trying to find a way to, is not likely to generate anything other than more anger and frustration. So, maybe war isn't the answer.