Conservatism Strikes Back

THIS WEBSITE WITHIN a website features articles written from a liberal point of view, much to the disgust of normal, conservative Americans. That needs to change. To that end, I contacted the people who operate this nonsensical piece of "Truthless Reconciler" trash, and offered them a bargain. The bargain is this:give a conservative a chance to respond, and your trashy liberal site will be less an object of international ridicule, and your brick and mortar headquarters will not be toilet papered on Halloween night. Sounds like a deal, and they took me up on it. Liberalism is the pernicious belief that change is badly needed in the world, in the United States in particular. It is the nonsense that good hard working Christians should be forced by their government to transfer their hard earned money to people who give birth out of wedlock, and who are too lazy to find and keep a job. Liberalism is the insanity that says that religions other than the true christian faith are worthy of existence. When Christ admonished us "render unto Caesar" and "give unto the poor", he clearly intended that tax collection should be for the purpose of building a strong military for the purpose of exporting American values around the world. Those values include; free market capitalism, unfettered by regulations and welfare programs, self sufficiency, and the freedom to own and operate firearms as the good people who own them see fit. Liberalism is the nonsense of cooperative economics, of sharing with those more needy, and less deserving. The Lord Jesus Christ intended that people should have the freedom to own and operate weapons, to profit from their own labor, to own businesses without government interference, and to hire labor at the lowest possible price, regardless of the impact the arrangement has on those who perform the labor. The United States of America was founded by Anglo-Saxon Christians, for the purpose of establishing a Kingdom of Christ on Earth. Enslaving Africans was the only means possible to bringing them to the true faith, and removing them from savagery. But today secular humanism stalks the land, with its dreadful specter of cultural diversity and, dare I say, atheism, socialism, wealth redistribution, and agnosticism. The time has come to fight back, to fight for the true American values we are likely to lose without a fight. This is a Christian, capitalistic country, militarily strong - but how long until it is otherwise?

Doing Everything In Reverse In America

IN AMERICA, we do everything, or nearly everything, backwards. We drive on parkways and park on driveways, and that aint the half of it. We venerate entertainers, and ignore teachers. We build statues to those who entertain us sufficiently, and lavish wealth on them, and elevate them to the status of gods. Teachers we take for granted, and it takes the moving of mountains to pay them adequately. We build statues to honor corrupt politicians and bloodthirsty generals, while in places like Iraq and Iran poets are celebrated. Those who exploit labor become wealthy in America, while those who labor, those who do the actual work are the exploited poor. The harder the work, the poorer the worker. The greater the capital investment, the greater the return. Abraham Lincoln pointed out that this is the opposite of what should be, by pointing out that labor comes before, and is superior in importance, to money. We consider capital to be superior to labor in America, the opposite of the truth. Unfettered capitalism, devoid of government regulation, is our idea of freedom, when in fact it is a form of slavery, and does not and cannot work for the many, but only for the few, at the expense of the many. Socialism, which works everywhere it is tried (police departments, fire departments, roads and highways, all public infrastructure, public schools, medicare, medicaid, social security) is demonized, even as it supports all aspects of our lives, and keeps capitalism alive by ameliorating capitalism's erstwhile disastrous impact on society. We guzzle alcohol like sponges, and throw people in jail for having anything to do with marijuana, which is not a drug, even though the U.S. government so classifies it, even though its health benefits are many, including lowering blood pressure. We venerate youth, and celebrate its beauty and shallow accomplishments, while ignoring the wisdom of our elders and packing them away in assisted living facilities, because nobody wants to care for them, nobody is willing to care for them without being paid for it. We send our armed forces around the world, destroying other countries and stealing their natural resources, while leaving our own borders unguarded. The more relentlessly our politicians seek political office and power, the more likely they are to achieve it. We fool ourselves into thinking that our leaders are leading as a form of public service, when nothing could be further from the truth. We should give office and power only to those who accept it with reluctance, like George Washington, who was our first, and probably last, honorable president. We fail to see all this only because, here in the great American fun house, the land of smoke and mirrors, we choose not to see, because to see the truth would be too painful for us. We resist the truth, as Goethe said, only because we fear we might perish if we accepted it. There will come a time, and soon, when we have no other choice but to see the truth about ourselves.

Descending Into Conservative Insanity

THE INSANITY, like a cancer, is spreading, and fast. It may get to the point where the only solution is a good, old fashioned wild western style barroom brawl. You've got Trump and Dr. Carson atop the field, like a pair of half rotted black oats awaiting the mercy of a good winter wind. Trump wants to kick ten million Mexicans out of the country, whether or not they take their children with them. Carson wants to tithe the country, Bible style, with all of us paying ten percent of our income in taxes. No wait. He says its more like fifteen percent. A fifteen hundred dollar tax bill for an income earner of ten grand, and a one hundred fifty thousand dollar bill for your proverbial millionaire. The former will be out on the street, the latter will hardly notice. The gap between rich and poor, already dangerously large, would swell to such proportions as to trigger another great recession, and greater revolution. This, from men who would lead America to...greatness...or...destruction. Among the crew is only one who remains marginally sane; John Kasich, who stood at the end of the line and pointed all this out, probably to no avail. Dr. Carson must have had at least one chemistry class in high school, before he revolutionized brain surgery. And still, for some crazy reason, he refuses to understand that if you pump a billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, and leave it there, it will have an impact on the world's climate. Is there a conservative in this country who understands that? Is there a conservative in America who understands that if we all pay the same tax rate, the nation will descend even deeper into bankruptcy? Evidently not. These are the people who believe that mass murders will cease if only we all arm ourselves like a national vigilante posse. These are the folks among whom Ted Cruz is regarded as the most articulate, because he uses words such as "catastrophic", and "laborious". How he got through Harvard law will remain, for the moment, a mystery. These are the people who believe that a collection of folk lore and primitive barbarity assembled at the Council of Nicea in the year 325 A.D., among much haggling and acrimony, is somehow the irrefutable word of God. Why should we expect anything more? Yet, somehow, we do, which proves only that among humans, hope springs eternal.

Hanging Out With the Right Words

AT THE END OF THE DAY, if you don't think outside the box, you'll get thrown under the bus, according to the narrative. And its all good. Have I omitted any prescient cliches? If so, it is to be hoped that memory will serve before the end of this brief commentary on the lack of verbal originality in modern American culture. Everyone seems to have some sort of narrative these days, we are all seeking to get outside some imaginary box, and we avoid buses. We just can't seem to do any word smithing for ourselves. It is estimated that the English language contains approximately one million words, more words than any other language. And although English is regarded by linguists as a highly expressive form of communication, with but few rhyming words (bad for didactic prosaic poets), replete with an abundance of synonyms, we fail to take advantage of our vast wealth of potential wording. We slink back into the comfort zone (there's another one!) of the exhaustively hackneyed. Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of swell, cool, groovy, and sitting in the catbird seat. We sit beneath our bus, inside our boxes, making our linear one dimensional narrative in comfort, because we have for some reason convinced ourselves that this is preferable to....actually thinking. Any visit to the house of primates at a good zoo demonstrates to us our imitative tendencies. Our close cousins, the chimpanzees, continually mock our gestures as we stand gawking at them, and they at us, and they imitate each other. They often throw their dung at us through the bars. But no, chimps are not our "cousins". They are, according to all genetic proof, to the scientific narrative, our brothers and sisters. (see "The Third Chimpanzee", by Jared Diamond). Fortunately we humans only give each other shit verbally. We hope this form of imitation will remain for us but a form of symbolism, and that we don't "buy in" to the literal primate program.. Have a good day. (oops, there I go again, on track).

Explaining Climate Change, and NFL Football, to Rush Limbaugh

RUSH LIMBAUGH, who can always be counted on to inspire a laugh, or a roll of the eyes, is at it again, stating the opposite of the truth. In the latest inane episode, Rush pointed out that the recent huge hurricane which hit Mexico proved far less catastrophic than predicted, proving, according to Rush, that global warming is a hoax. How, said El Rushbo, can scientists possibly predict climate change in general when they can't even get a single storm right? Well, the answer is this. A single hurricane is a singular, specific event, like an NFL football game. Global warming is a general, comprehensive process, like an entire NFL season. Before each football season, predictions are made. You can predict that there will be some good teams, some bad teams, and some mediocre teams. You can even predict with reasonable accuracy which teams they will be. You can predict that New England and Green Bay, for instance, will be quite good, and will win many games, while teams like the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears will have losing records. Chances are you will be roughly correct, just by comparing schedules and team rosters and previous season's outcomes and even pre season game results. You cannot, however, predict exactly what those records will be. New England may win anywhere from ten to fourteen games, as may Green Bay. But for the most part, they will have winning records. However, if Detroit and Chicago are scheduled to play this weekend, there is no way to predict the game's final score, much less the winner. The same is true if and when Green Bay and New England play each other during the regular season. Either team could win. A single game, between any two NFL teams, is unpredictable, just like the future course and destructive impact of a single storm. But we know for sure that if you put billions of tons of carbon into Earth's atmosphere, and leave it there, it will absorb extra heat, and keep absorbing it, day after day. You just can't be sure what the temperature will be exactly at any one time and place, tomorrow or the next day, much less the far future. Nor can you predict when the next major storm will be, and where it will hit, and what precise impact it will have. The more specific the event being predicted, the less chance of precise accuracy. The more general the event being predicted, the more likely a general accuracy will be achieved. It would be nice if someone could perhaps explain this to Rush Limbaugh, who is a fan of the NFL. Problem is, it would most likely be beyond his comprehension.

Being compassionate: With Other People's Money

THERE COMES A TIME when a man has to stand up for what's right... Around 1830 the U.S. House of Representatives was considering a bill which would authorize a pension, appropriated from the general revenue, for a widow lady whose husband, an officer who had served in the War of 1812, had recently died, leaving her without any means of support. The bill was on its way to receiving nearly unanimous support for passage, when up stepped a hillbilly from the state of Tennessee, Congressman David Crockett. He gave his "it aint ours to give" speech, in which he argued that all public money should be spent on projects for the benefit of the entire nation, the entire population, rather than selected individuals. After all, he argued, there are many individuals who could use a little financial help, but the nation as a whole was in need of a whole heap of help. As usual, when Congressman Crockett was speaking, and butchering the language, the more sophisticated members from the east grinned at him derisively, and he could tell that his viewpoint was going to be taken as an indication of a lack of compassion. So the Congressman made a proposal: we all get paid eight dollars a day, said Crockett, which usually amounted to about forty dollars a week. At that time there were about fifty members of the House, instead of the familiar four hundred and thirty five we have today. Davy reasoned that if each member chipped in one week's Congressional pay each year, for the duration of the widow's life, why then, the lady would be guaranteed a steady income for the rest of her life. He offered to put in the first forty dollars, and asked, "who's next"? Guess how many takers he had? You guessed right: zero. Far easier to show compassion with other people's money. it seems.

Pounding the Ground

I STARTED RUNNING as a hobby thirty years ago, when I was thirty years old. Its been great, and it may have contributed much to my health and happiness. Other runners would probably say the same thing. My longest run ever was between ten and eleven miles, and I only did that to impress a girl I was training with. She was preparing for a marathon, I was impressing. Other than that, I've had a nine miler, a pair of eights, and then, thousands of shorter ones.That's good enough for me. I have never seriously considered running twenty six miles and three hundred eighty five yards. That last three hundred and eighty five yards is just too much. They say anyone can run a marathon, with enough motivation, and I tend to agree. Everyone, that is, except me. I just can't see it. Why bother? The fact that dude ran this great distance to deliver a warning to the folks in Athens concerning the imminent arrival of the Persian army is insufficient reason for me, I guess. If I go an hour, maintain a decent pace, I am happy, and feel like I've had my exercise. The tens of thousands of people who actually run marathons are, in my mind, freaks of nature, every last one of them. Dude on National Public Radio was talking about being over the age of fifty, and having an eighteen year old daughter who was majoring in engineering, hoping to become an astronaut. She needed to be fit, and daddy needed to help her. Several marathons later, he's live on the radio, chatting into a microphone, as he enters mile ten of his daily work out. I just don't see it. A seventy six year old retired military man has run in every Marine corps marathon ever run, since the first one in 1976. He is among the few remaining "ground pounders", meaning those who have run 'em all, or, those who serve in army infantry. We are a culture of extremes. Extreme wealth, extreme entertainment, bigger house, more miles per runner, more hot dogs per contest. Me? I'd rather serve in the infantry, or, for that matter, in prison.

Enjoying the Right Wing Freak Show

THE ATTACKS BEGAN against Barack Obama even before the first pitch was thrown, even as it did against Bill Clinton, and now, Hillary. The pillory Hillary has isn't even warmed up yet, and already we see the viciousness. In 1993, the right wingers protested by grabbing their Bibles and automatic rifles, putting on camo fatigues, and heading out into the woods, for whatever purpose. Timothy McVeigh put an abrupt end to that. No such luck for H. Rodham and B Hussein; no McVeigh in sight - yet. Just for the record, no, Obama is not a Moslem. If he were, he would probably tell us, straight up. And, to boot, Hillary Clinton most likely has not used her personal computer to sell state secrets to foreign powers. Whatever her lapses in good judgment, they are probably less severe; she did, after all, graduate from high school. Don't count the right wing crazies out just yet; there's enough insanity among them to go around. It may well be that one among the Jesus,Guns, and Money crowd will try something stupid, and all the acrimony will take a turn for the mild. None of this is new. In 1800 Thomas Jefferson was accused by his opponents of being an adulterer and an atheist, both charges of which were at least partly true. Since then we've descended into a less rigorous standard of truth; never let the facts get in the way of a good slander. Obama is not a traitor, and he does not hate America. Hillary has involved in no cover ups, as far as we know. If she has, they are still well covered. Not to worry; the attempt to slander members of the Democratic party into submission trudges on, and one can only hope that the fascinating spectacle of hatred based vitriol will continue to keep sane people sufficiently amused to keep laughing, and to keep brushing it aside as the garbage that it all is.

Against the Islamic State, the Pen is Mightier Than the Airstrike

EVERYONE WHO IS ANYONE seems to have some sort of plan with which to deal with the recently established "Islamic State", the hard line theocracy which has grown like a spreading cancer in the middle of what was once Iraq, but is still Mesopotamia. Everyone agrees that the new nation, under God (aren't all nations so under?) is "self proclaimed", which everyone seems to think tells us a great deal about the legitimacy of I.S.I.S., but in fact does not, since all countries are named in the same fashion; they proclaim it, we accept it. The Russians have their plan, whatever it may be; they claim to be attacking ISIS, while actually attacking other stuff. The Americans, for their part, talk about air strikes, and sometimes actually conduct them, but with very little supporting information, or verifiable effectiveness. Sometimes the Yanks hit their targets, sometimes they do not, and, either way, we all know that air power alone never wins wars. Americans are, in any event, satiated with war, having waged it constantly in Iraq since 1990, with little if anything to show for it, and for that reason we can be assured that American ground forces will never attack the Islamic State, but will keep trying to train and convince others to do so, a strategy which to date has had no noticeable success. Meanwhile, the I.S. is using the internet, with alluring websites, to attract support for its 'cause', and that seems to be working. Finally, opponents of the cancer are doing the same thing. Islamic clerics, using the internet, are showing the world and potential ISIS members that the new nation is not at all Islamic, but, rather, a perversion of the faith. Islamic clerics who oppose ISIS are waging intellectual, scripture based spiritual warfare, and it will one day prove to be the undoing of ISIS, if indeed it is ever to be undone. The pen, for all our modern cynicism and penmanship, is still mightier than the proverbial sword, and fortunately, there are some who, in the fog of war, have not forgotten this eternal verity.

Americans, Too Angry and Stupid To Bear Arms

EVERY DAMNED TIME I'm dong thirty five in a thirty five,some average American asshole (AAA) closes to within five feet of my rear bumper, and I exaggerate not. many other Americans report the same phenomenon. This is neither conspiracy theory run amok nor mere opinion; its a fact of American vehicular life. I'm sure it happens all over the planet; I've heard how wildly people drive in other countries, like Brazil. Exactly what does this tell us about the average American adult? Quite simply, it tells us that your average American adult is thoughtless, aggressive, with poor judgment. In other words, an idiot. Most Americans support the second amendment, the one about the right to carry guns, because most of us fear a government powerful enough to take them away, which is probably stupid in itself, because, in those countries where firearms have been taken away, government tyranny does not seem to have become any more manifest than here in America. And, even though Americans have lately greatly expanded their right to carry guns and have greatly increased their tendency to carry them, government tyranny, including unpopular foreign wars, surveillance of Americans, and police authority has greatly outpaced arms bearing citizens. We the American people have shown absolutely no inclination to use our firearms to prevent our own government from tyrannizing us. And in a country where dangerous, aggressive driving, and road rage, is rampant, where this behavior is perfectly normal and practiced by nearly all good, successful, average Americans, should we really trust ourselves to carry weapons?

YOU MAY RECALL, unless you have the attention span of an average American, that rather recently an American Air Force aircraft, or perhaps several of them, bombed the hell out of a hospital in, - was it Afghanistan? - for no discernible reason, killing many doctors and nurses and patients affiliated with the international organization "Doctors Without Borders". Just another day in paradise, the land of the free, and the home of the bombs. Par for the proverbial American course. What's a little collateral damage among good friends? Happens all the time, especially in the American military. The director of Doctors without Borders, a certain Dr. Stokes, evidently has accused the United States of doing the deed deliberately, as in, deliberate murder. Here we go again. Here come the conspiracy theories. The problem with this theory is that the United States Air Force, despite all high tech claims to the contrary, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a sack full of cow shit, let alone a hospital in the middle of a city, if it was trying to. Accusing the U.S. of hitting an intended target with a bomb is like accusing it of concealing extraterrestrials; way behind the level of competence, way beyond the pay grade. Of the tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed by American military might in the Middle East over the past generation or so, nearly all of them were accidents. America may be greedy, corrupt, and fat, but give credit where credit is due: we know how to kill, particularly by accident.

Doing Better Thinking

WE AS AMERICANS would all be a good deal better off, one might think, if we would only willingly think on a slightly higher, more intelligent level. For example, take an issue, any issue. Like, say, abortion. That'll do. Good choice, in fact, because its nice and controversial, very divisive, and could benefit from a little higher thought. its a needlessly contentious issue, for only one reason; good old fashioned American stupidity. Take the liberal, pro choice position, for isntance. Power to the woman, not the government. Free to choose. Fine. But, what about the unborn child? If abortion aint murder, its too close for comfort, and yet, how often do you ever hear any screeching pro choice pro feminist liberal even mention that inconvenient truth? Seldom, if ever. Lieral pro choice people would do well to include a little anti-abortion fefeling to go along with all the pro choice sentiment. Now take the conservative viewpoint; pro life. All well and good, but please, let's hear no more from conservatives about how they are the advocates of "small government" in America. If legislating what a woman can and cannot do with the inside of her own body isn't big government, then there is simply no such thing as big government. On this issue, it is the libs who expouse small government, even if they don't go nearly far enough in expousing the virtues of birth. Two opposing arguments, with very popular points of view, both fatally flawed through a lack of intelligent reasoning. We could do better. It requires only a modest act of will to wax open minded, to unburden onself of one's limitations, to grow. The rewards for so doing are great, including spiritual, emotional, and intellectual liberation. Yet, few seek open mindedness. Open mindedness could heal all divisions, and bring us all together like we've never been together before. If you happen to be a pro life small government conservative, consider how passionately you desire that government protect the unborn, finally. That's a mighty big job, protecting the unborn, and only a big government can do it. You liberals, meanwhile, might like to try a more little passion for life, and concern when it ends, needlessly.

Pulling Ourselves Away From Our Pets, Briefly

IN MY AVERAGE AMERICAN town I have many neighbors, one of whom is friendly. His name is Juan, and he came from Guatemala. Juan waves when he drives by, and sometimes we visit in his backyard while he loads or unloads his work truck. I've never spoken to his wife, who is a born American. Without Juan my world would be far more lonely, thus, for Juan I sincerely thank the unseen gods of Latin American culture. My other neighbors, fellow lower middle class native european-american caucasions, never speak to me. Especially the women. Sinecly something like twenty five percent of all American women have been sexually abused, I certainly can't blame them for wanting to avoid me, but, somehow, I feel my loss. Oh hell, the loss is theirs! I'll never forget my friend from Shanghai, who came to America and said: "you Amellicans are the roneriest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than each other!" He seemed upset by it. I assured him he needn't be. You got that right, I told him, and that's just the way we like it. Sharp one, that Chinese friend of mine. Didn't take him long to figure us Americans, and our culture, out. I also reassured him that down deep, Americans are good, friendly people, its just that you have to dig down a bit. I knew he would make friends in America, especially if he moved to a bigger city, which he did. Sometimes, maybe we yanks over do the individual thing a bit, as documented well in the great book "Bowling Alone", by Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam. But, deep down, sometimes way deep down, we still like each other enough to hang out a little bit, if and when we can pull ourselves away from our precious dogs and cats.

Carrying Guns

SINCE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER was attacked, membership in the national Rifle Association has nearly doubled, most states have made it legal to carry guns in public, and gun ownership across the fruited plain has increased dramatically. A traditionally gun happy civilization, America, has turned it up a notch or two. All the while, the United States government has created a vast system to conduct a complete and thorough surveillance of the American people, to monitor nearly everything we do, and congress has legislated many of our basic civil lliberties out of existence with such laws as "The Patriot Act". So much for the old argument that a well armed citizenry is a defense against tyranny from its own government. A well armed citizenry accedes meekly to all manner of tyranny, actually. And yet, our conservative colleagues continue to insist that a well armed America is the only way to go, that would be mass murderers would be gunned down in their tracks, before ever having a chance to finish their foul deeds, were the American citizenry well armed. If you believe that, you deserve to, with your own fate linked to and tested by the proposition. In angry, neurotic, road rage infected America, the one we all know and love, a well armed citizenry is likely to lead to a whole lot of excitement, though not of the sort we want. A state legislator in Florida, one of those well groomed young Ted Cruz-Marco Rubio types, recently indicated that he would feel safer if he walked into a fast food restaurant and found twenty other customers carrying guns. Armed people tend to be more courteous to each other, he noted. I'm not making this up. This is how crazy we have become, notably, the conservative segment of us. If I ever walk into a Mickey Dees and find twenty other customers carrying guns, I'll raise my hands above my head, or fold them meekly behind my back, turn around, close my eyes, pray, and try to sneak out the nearest door. I'd be lucky to get out alive. Anybody who would feel safer in this situation is plain crazy.

Reminding the High Court That Money Isn't Speech

THE RECENT DISCOVERY that one half of all the money spent thus far on the U.S. presidential campaign has come from a mere one hundred and fifty eight families is shocking, partly because the amount already spent is enormous, and its still early. Can you imagine how much money will have been spent by November of next year? Plus, of course, the fact that America is owned, controlled, governed, and exploited by such a small number of people is absolutely horrifying. The only thing lacking is the absolute despot at the very top. Give us time. The typical conservative reaction is: "a lot of that money is going to democrats too!". hardly helpful or illuminating, but true. More proof that the two political parties are merely two branches of the same one; the party of wealth and property. Is this what we really want? Or would we rather pass a new law: "The sale and purchase of political advertising is prohibited"? We're not talking about free speech here; we're talking about bought and paid for speech, which, like all forms of speech, if one of us has, all of us should have. So, make it free. A million dollar a minute TV advertising aint free speech, pure and simple, and thus, such a law would not be an infringement of free speech, or unconstitutional. Except for the unfortunate fact that the U.S.Supreme Court has ruled, in all its black robed wisdom, that money is speech, however that works. So, the other thing we need to do is reverse the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2010. Recently the court ruled in favor of gay marriage, probably because the majority masses of Americans were demanding it, and not because of any constitutional reason, since there is nothing in the Constitution about gay marriage. So, if we want to end the corruption in politics brought about by the court, by getting the court to reverse itself on its ridiculous ruling that money is speech,, maybe a little demonstrating and protesting in the streets of America, or a lot of it, would do the trick.

Frightening Implications

IN SOCIOLOGY, there is something called "riot theory", according to which, the more people who have already joined a riot, the easier it becomes for more people to join. The first person to riot is the truly devoted rioter, the highly motivated kick starter, and each additional person is more likely to join with less incentive or motivation. It rather parallels marriage theory, in which the more marriages one has, the easier it is to divorce, and the easier it is to remarry. Or the serial killer, for whom each additional homicide is easier to commit, with less uncertainty. It becomes ho hum. Been there, done that. Join the crowd. Disturbingly, this basic human behavioral tendency is being proposed as an explanation for the rapid increase in the number of mass murders in America over the past few years. A somewhat more sophisticated version of the copy cat theory. Evidently, some or most of the killers, all of whom are angry, troubled, loner, alienated young men, admire previous killers; the kids at Columbine High who created mayhem back in 1999 are, it appears, something like cult heroes among the mass murderer community. The internet can lend cohesion to any community, no matter how twisted, It has a ring of truth to it, this riot theory applied to mass murders, if you think about it. Its terribly frightening, because as a theory, it would seem to predict a never ending increase in the frequency of these awful events. At least, an increase in the frequency of mass murder for as long as there are sick people who admire the monsters, and no way to head them off before they act. For our own sake, let's hope the theory has some fatal, unseen flaw.

America, the Land of Revolution, As Usual

THE UNITED STATES of America has a proud and venerable history of revolution. If you think that Christianity or capitalism is the backbone of America, you're wrong. The backbone of America, other than baseball, is, dear reader, revolution, pure and simple. The country began in a flaming torrent of revolution. All of our founders were flaming revolutionaries. During America's two hundred and forty six years of legalized slavery, there were frequent slave uprisings, which you never hear about today. The colonists often defied their British masters, with tea parties and trail blazing in Tennessee. George Washington had his notorious Whiskey rebellion. What we call "the Civil War" was nothing other than a massive revolution, a great rebellion, a second revolutionary war. Then came the labor strikes, protests, riots and armed battles with authorities in the late nineteenth and dearly twentieth centuries. Tens of thousands of America's women marched in America's streets trying, successfully, to force the government to give them the right to vote. The summer of 1932 was particularly exciting in Washington D.C., as thousands of World War One veterans walked in to Washington D.C., demanding their pay, and taking over the town, until being driven out of town and slaughtered by their own government. After World War Two, and indeed before World War Two, America's former slaves marched and rioted for decades, trying to force the country to accept them as equals. In that, they have made progress, but have not yet been entirely successful. Some cause take longer than others, it seems. The anti Viet Nam war protests of the nineteen sixties gave way to a renewed women's protest movement, once again fighting for equality. In America, the land of the "ahem" free and the home of the brave, most of us must fight for equality, it seems. We haven't always been free, but we've always been brave, brave enough, at least, to fight for our own freedom. Americans are always rioting, rebelling, and protesting, usually against themselves, against their darker side. Most recently, many of us occupied wall street. So, why stop now? Bring on the next revolution!

Texting, and Not Talking

RESEARCH IS STARTING to come in regarding electronic devices and their overall impact on humans. The jury is still out on brain cancer, but early returns seem to indicate that all this texting, tweeting, and facebooking is having a negative impact on communication, namely face to face conversation skills. Little wonder, since nobody ever engages in old fashioned face to face polite conversation anymore. Why bother, when a quick text message will do? whenever any two humans are forced to actually converse face to face, they have no idea what to do. My personal opinion is that the electronic revolution, big screen, high def, smart phones, the internet, and all that, is the greatest thing since bread began being sliced and packaged conveniently for your average American consumer. A true wonder, our great computer-electronic revolution, with the potential to greatly improve the world. Its all good. However, I love the fact that, and am grateful that I live in a free country, where I am free to not have any of that stuff. I used to have all that stuff, and one fine day I became enlightened, and got rid of it all. The feeling of liberation is indescribable, you have to be there. Maybe someday I'll get it all back. Its the freedom of choice I like. I have an old fashioned primitive home phone, no television of any sort, and I use computers at public libraries. Much less expensive that way. My entertainment is radio and library books, my cats, and the great outdoors, which is not only just fine, but incredibly fulfilling. My telephone never rings. Why should it, when all they have to do is text? No text, no talk. People tell me they tried to text me, evidently without ever even remotely considering the possibility that a person might choose not to utilize that particular service. I thank t hem, and tell them to keep trying...

Conservatives, Quietly Changing

MODERN AMERICAN CONSERVATISM (MAC) ,like everything else, changes continuously, if perhaps a bit slowly. For instance, today's conservatives are not, as a rule, racists! People can and do change. Wonders never cease. If memory serves, every conservative currently running for president denies climate change, as do conservatives in general, which is a problem for them, since climate change is real, is caused by humans, and is happening all around us, even as we speak. So, they (MACs) will soon begin to change, as smoothly and undetectably as possible. The weather changes all the time, with or without humans. Humans are far too small to have any impact on nature, but if they do, its minimal. So go their absurdly outdated arguments. It seems likely that by now they know the truth, and are merely trying to ding a way of coming around to it without anyone remembering how terribly wrong and stupid they were. People like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in particular, with their youth, Harvard educations, and intelligence, deny global warming only because to acknowledge it would undermine so many of their conservative values, such as unlimited economic growth, that to do so would be far too painful. But anyone who understands high school chemistry understands climate change, understands the simple fact that if you put billions of tons of extra carbon in the atmosphere and leave it there, it will effect the atmosphere. Like, duh. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz doubtless understand this, but cannot bring themselves, yet, to accept it and publicly acknowledge it. They must find a way to get to the correct side of the issue, without appearing to have ever been wrong. This is a bit tricky, but it can be done, and if anybody can do it, its slick boys Marco and Ted. In this sense, they are in a serious trap, clinging to a weird, outdated, false but standard Modern American Conservative belief. But give these guys credit. They both are slick as whistles, with their nice hair, pleasant words, and suits and ties. And hell, their still very young, and deserve a chance to improve themselves. They'll find a way, somehow, to accept reality, even if they have to sneak in the back of the house of truth. For the sake of all of us, let's hope they do it sooner rather than later.

My Great Grandmother, Being Defiant

I COME FROM a long line of Bavarian dairy farmers. My great great grandfather came to America from Bavaria around 1860, with half a dozen milk cows, and end up in Kansas. (I wish I knew more about that adventure). He had a son in 1865, my great grandfather, about the time he moved the family farm to Missouri, perhaps because of a good deal on some land. He died in 1885, and his son, my great grandfather took over and ran the dairy farm until his death in 1913, and in the picture, he is front and center, looking straight at the camera, wearing work clothes. The photo, taken between 1910 and 1913, is obviously intended to show off the business; all the wooden milk wagons and horses are lined up in front of the big wooden barn, with about fifteen people, my family and their hired hands, posing for the camera, which must have been a big box on top of a tripod, with a cameraman hiding beneath a black shroud. All posing, looking straight at the camera... except my great grandmother, Anna, who is off to the right, very much in the picture, but very much uninterested in posing. A serious, attractive dark haired woman in her forties, great grandmother Anna sits on a hitching post, her feet up on a wooden wagon wheel, floor length nineteenth century farm dress, her arms folded, looking away from the camera. This is all obviously nonsense to her, a waste of time, time when there is work to be done, cows to be milked. (No cows in the picture, but there ought to be). If you want a family picture, fine, we can take one at church, right after the sermon, when we're all together and dressed up anyway. Why do we need to wear work clothes, and stand in front of the barn with the hired help, on a work day? And, after all, in another hundred years, what difference will it make? Well, great grandmother Anna, that's where I, your great great grandson from the future, a sixty year old man in the year twenty fifteen, enter the picture. You were at least willing to let the picture be taken, back there in 1910 Victorian America, even though you didn't want to, even though you thought it was a waste of time, and you were even willing to be in it, though you were most certainly not willing to cooperate with it, and you wanted everyone to know it. You were obviously in control of the family, and could have stopped the picture any time you wanted to. But you didn't. Instead you sat for the picture; defiantly. And because of that, because of your willingness to think of others: I, your distant descendant in the year 2015, have you as a treasure in my life. I like to think you did it for me, as well as for the others in the picture.

Workers of the World, Uniting (against tyranny...)

MY FELLOW RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN PATRIOTS! (wow..that sounds good..). Our governments are, as usual, mutually engaged in madness: this time, namely, the bombing of Syria. Both countries claim to be attacking the Islamic State, but neither is. The Americans, at least, are trying to. So far they seem to do better against neutral parties such as hospitals, but, hell, we're still young, and, who knows, with enough practice, we Americans may actually start to hit a few intended targets. Mr. Putin, meanwhile, is vigorously attacking all who oppose Bashar al-Assad, except the Islamic State, while claiming to be attacking the Islamic State, which, in fact, says it has seen neither hide nor hair of any Russians or Russian bombs. Our respective governments, dear ordinary working Russian masses and friends, can't even agree on who the enemy is, and whether Mr. Assad should remain in power. And, of course, it goes without saying, that our governments lie to us like the dogs they must think we are. The elite oligarchies which rule the United States, Russia, and China all want to conquer and maintain an empire, just like all other powerful and foolish countries throughout history. This, as we know, is pure insanity, and will never work. Therefore we, the billions of common people in the U.S.A., China, and Russia, must join together to stop our rulers and masters from working more of their insanity upon the world. We the people, for instance, have no desire to fight each other, and yet, we fight each other, because our tyrannical rulers insist on it. It happens only because we allow it. How much longer will we choose to do so? The poor and powerless people of the world greatly outnumber the wealthy, powerful few, and could, if they wished, throw the oligarchs out on the street, and seize control of civilization on behalf of everyone, rather than allowing it to remain in the hands of, functioning for the benefit of, the elite few. The internet makes this possible. Now is the time for Occupy Wall Street online.

Carrying Guns, While Acceding Meekly To Tyranny

FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY in America will not be defended and preserved by the National Rifle Association, or by citizens carrying guns, openly or concealed. Whether it will ever be created at all, much less defended and maintained, is highly questionable, but if it is, It will be achieved by citizens voting on a large scale, on issues that really matter. It will happen by citizens communicating, organizing, insisting on their rights, by having a grass roots revolution in the streets of America, if necessary. We Americans do things the right way; non violently. Or at least we could do things that way if we really wanted to. One half of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides, true, and guns don't kill people, people kill people, true, technically, but...still...But still. Do you really want your average American packing heat in public? Think Carefully about your answer, and take into consideration all that you know about your average American, and the answer should come easily. Right now, at this point in their tedious and often painful evolution, Americans are much too angry to carry guns, and would only sue them to engage in a great national shoot out, but who knows about the future? In the future, we Americans may well be so loving, peaceful, and wise that we are qualified to carry powerful weapons, but if we ever are so noble, we will probably neither want to or need to carry guns. All gun crime comes from within a society, and none of it is a fluke. It is a symptom. Since Nine Eleven membership in the NRA has doubled, state after American state has legalized heat packing, the number of guns in America has drastically increased, and yet, meanwhile, the government has enacted laws taking away American's basic liberties, and has created a vast police state which keeps constant surveillance on the American people, all with the tacit consent of the gun toting American people, who have timidly en masse kept their smoke wagons holstered and acceded like dumb sheep to their own government's domestic tyranny. Great job, National Rifle Association! Way to defend our American liberties through a well armed citizen militia...Exactly what do our right wing American gun slingers think we can do, march, armed to the teeth, up Capitol Hill, demanding that the feds turn off the cameras, stop listening to our phone calls, and let a few million wrongly convicted prisoners of war ( the War on Drugs) out? Fat chance of that. Better we all disarm, stop shooting ourselves in the foot, and try changing our lives the right way. As defenders of freedom, all our guns, my fellow Americans, are worthless as tits on a boar hog.

Bombing Away, Sans Plan

THE HIGH FLYING, BOMB FLINGING Air force of the United States of America ("Amassacre") is at it again. It (the USAF) always manages to either break something, kill somebody, or both. Hospitals send a strong message. Leave town, Taliban! Will are even willing to kill the sick and the wounded! Or something like that. American air power is on loan in Syria and Iraq. And why not? We certainly aren't using it for anything more destructive. Russia and the United States are both dropping bombs in the Middle East, and neither of them has the slightest idea why. At least the Russians seem to have some sort of plan, and appear to be implementing it. The United States has no such luck. Evidently both Obama and America's military brain trust in the Pentagon are at a complete loss. both superpowers keep pledging to lead a great victorious war to destroy the Islamic State. But they both seem tentative, uninterested, and there may come a time when it begins to appear that the Islamic state will outlast them both. You begin to wonder whether its all worth it.Whether the imperialism, the domination of the world, is worth all the trouble, the money, the death, the grief. Think of those poor bastards in Russia, barely scraping together enough to eat, wondering why their government is spending all that time, money, and effort in places like Syria. All militarily powerful countries throughout history have become empires, because they, being human, have been unable to resist the temptation to use power for further gain. and they've all come to ruin. The cost of conquering an empire - and that's the only way to get one, to conquer it - is always greater than the wealth gained through conquest, than the return on the investment. Its almost as if this is a law of nature. And yet, over and over again, down through history, the powerful have sought to expand their domain by reaching out into the domains of others, and conquering. A wise man once said: "put a gun in a man's hand, the first thing he wants to do is use it." Ah, will we never learn...

Our Exciting Lives in the United States of Amassacre

AND SO, IN OUR LATEST EPISODE of "American Mass Extermination" (AME), the chosen victims were given a short quiz up front, just to make things more interesting. A pre-apocalyptic personal exam, one final shot at self expression, so to speak. "Are you a Christian?" each involuntary applicant was asked. those who answered affirmatively were summarily sent to their chosen promised land, aka heaven ,by the shooter, impersonating God. Smart ass Intellectual equivocating, of the sort that usually gets you sent to hell by mainstream American Christians, merited a mere slug in the leg this time around. sometimes Jehovah takes Isaac, sometimes Yahweh takes the ram. Out Judea christian God, capitalism, and the second amendment harmonize beautifully, with only a bit of tweaking, here in the conservative end of the United States of Amassacre. We must all be wondering what we would have said, how we would have been graded. Isn't that the point? Now is the time for all good Americans to bear arms! goes the conservative Christian capitalistic chant, mindlessly droning. The fly in the ointment is: Every mass murderer was once a good person. All future mass murderers are currently good people. Plus, of course; all Americans are about half crazy by nature, and should never be allowed to carry weapons, let alone be out on the street unattended. I would have stood there, I swear, and started talking about pantheism, Einstein, deism, and Jefferson until the erstwhile shooter either fell asleep, dropped his weapon and ran away screaming, or engaged in an interesting debate with me. Either way, I would have saved the day, without ever firing a weapon or brandishing one, other than my wild, incomprehensible intellect. Or at least I might've had a chance to survive, but hell, I'll talk to anybody. In our two most recent installments, a pretty young journalist was blown away on live TV, and the Christian faith itself was targeted, both by previously good people with solid records of prior good behavior.; how beautifully, commercially American! But..what to do for an encore...render weapons unto us all, carry, conceal, or reveal! Let the games begin for real...

Bombing Syria...for Some Unknown Reason

DON'T LOOK NOW, but apocalyptic Christian prophecy of the wildest sort may be coming true before our very eyes. Even as we speak, both Russia and the United States are dropping bombs on Syria, though its highly questionable whether either nation-state has the foggiest reason why, or any real knowledge of what or who their intended targets are. Bombing for the sake of bombing, its finally here, reincarnated at last from the rubble of Iraq, viet Nam, and Dresden When you think about it, you realize that, somehow, it just had to come to this. Russia and the United States are allies and enemies at the same time, just like they were back in World War Two, only this time, its even weirder and more complicated. Americans and Russians in large numbers are streaming into the newly created and self proclaimed Islamic State to be of assistance to it, while both nation-state empires declare it to be their enemy. But in Syria, both self proclaimed bastions of virtue are on opposite sides in the great Syrian civil War, a technicality which would, one think, eventually need to be worked out in order to move forward into a better, brighter tomorrow for all. Ironically, Syria is a much more ancient and civilized country than either Russia or America, both of which were defecating in their muddy village streets when Damascus was glowing with street lights and sewer systems. Nonetheless, here in the confused, politically complicated present its bombs away, courtesy two of the most confused and politically corrupt imperial machines of mass destruction the world has ever known, or is ever likely, if we are fortunate, to know again.