Can I kick it? No, you can't.

Concerned, as a matter of fact, that we, as a country, may be fucked.

The economy is still very rough for a lot of people, we're mired in a couple of very costly wars, oil rigs are tipping over and exploding, and I can't think of a snappy way to end this sentence.

In the past, when I felt a little down about the state of things, I'd take a step back from it all, remind myself that this country has been in rougher spots, and we always managed to tighten the belts, pull together, and do what was necessary to stop the ship of state from sinking. We'd emerge stronger, wiser, and the next generation would be on its way to doing better than the current one.

Not this time. I can't see it happening. Why? There are a lot of reasons.

First of all, I think we have a fascism problem that needs to be addressed. Some of you are probably smirking in a knowing fashion. "A-ha! He sees Obama for what he really is!"

Sort of. You're right, but for the wrong reason.

Fascism is not when men in garish uniforms stand at podiums demanding racial purity or national superiority. Fascism is much more an economic theory than a political one. Essentially, when the government and corporations collude to determine national policy, that's Fascism. Corporatism would do equally well as a description.

So, when you cry that Obama is a Fascist, it's because you think he's coming after your guns and Christianity. He isn't. If the president has Fascist leanings and policies, and he does, you should at least be somehow content that it's only because he is allowing corporations to write law and policy at the federal level, whether they are good for the citizens of the United States or not.

So, stop calling Obama a Fascist, unless you're actually concerned about the creeping corporatocracy that is ruining the country.

But ignorance of the meaning of the word brings me to another equally large problem that makes me think we're going to have a tough go bouncing back this time: We are getting dumber by the year.

We may live in the information age, but most people only want the information that jibes with what they already believe. The world is only 6000 years old? Of course it is, hundreds of websites and my pastor say so! You can cut taxes and reduce deficits? I've found an entire cable news channel and one-and-a-half major political parties in the US who insist it's so! Evolution is a myth? Damn straight, otherwise monkeys would have human babies, right?

Check and mate.

I can almost live with the willful ignorance. I mean, people are taught a lot of really dumb things as children, and bad wiring is tough to rip out once that house is built. If you were taught that the Bible is a literal record, there's always the possibility that you may, upon reaching maturity, understand that they are loosely historically-based fables. Many have good morals, some have really bad ones, and you can still manage to believe in your deity without worrying too much about whether to eat shellfish, or selling your daughter into slavery.

We're past willful. We've moved on to prideful ignorance.

These are the people who will stick their fingers in their ears, screaming how climate change is a myth, even as reams of data rolls in about the continuing streak of hottest years on record. You show them fossils, they trot out Genesis and stories of how dinosaur bones were put in the ground by Satan to fool us. What great things can you hope to accomplish with dependence on people like this?

So, we're ignorant, and dumber. What else? Lazy.

Now, I don't think it's so much a lack of work ethic. People in this country work hard, many because they take real pride in doing good work and earning their pay, although more do it because they're afraid if they don't crush it every second, they'll find their asses fired.

Our problem is that a lot of us want to believe that there is a magic bullet to solve our problems. Crumbling infrastructure? Someone will fix that, the free market, most likely. We're fat, so instead of eating better and exercising, we wait around for science to invent a pill that will allow us to do whatever we want and stay thin, and erect for more than 15 minutes, but less than four hours.

I don't believe we have the will to pull together and achieve anything important anymore. Could this country, as it exists today, build the Interstate Highway System, electrify Appalachia, the South and West, or send a man to the moon? How could we hope to manage them, when everyone is so insistent that things be done the way they want, common good be damned?

Which brings us to intolerance.

We've actually spent a good hunk of the summer arguing about whether or not American citizens with spotless criminal records should have the right to build a community center on a city zoning-approved site they own, two blocks from where some radical religious assholes knocked down buildings nine years ago.

THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The First Amendment is very clear about this. The government doesn't get to decide how or where you pray. A local government can pass restrictions about types of construction allowed, and usage of areas of land, but if you pass muster on the zoning, you get to have your prayer shack.

Why isn't anyone getting in the ass of the greedy capitalist that sold "sacred ground" (near the strip club), to these awful weirdos, who, let me remind you, had nothing to do with any terrorist attacks on American soil, or anyplace else?

"Well, turning a profit on real estate is as American as apple pie."

And so it is. A corporation made money on the sale, investors were enriched, and the wheel keeps turning, greased in the same manner we all understand.

Greased, not with the tens of millions of gallons of oil that flowed into the Gulf, while government stood by impotently, as BP was allowed to control beach access and the airspace over the disaster, because they've got more flex than any government agency. The feds couldn't stop it, and it turned out that the almighty corporation didn't have a plan for such a contingency, either.

No plan for trouble was needed. The government trusted the corporation to do the right thing. And BP will deliver on that promise, larger profits when all of this blows over.

Which will be sooner rather than later.

This country lacks the will to achieve anything much greater than finding a more comfortable way to watch television. It will be built in China, and it will be paid for with a credit card.

There are still things to be thankful for, of course. I am mostly thankful that I won't be alive in a hundred years to see how bad it gets.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Czar chasm

50-70000 people showed up in Washington DC Saturday to protest...something. Everything! A few snippets:

The remarkable thing here, is that there is very little of this which has been taken out of context. It's easy to make people look stupid via editing, but the interviewer was really only asking them why they were so upset about the things that their signs claimed that they were upset about. Again, I'm not really wild about the debt and deficit being where they are, but when the economy is where it is, this is the only recourse. You don't have to be happy about it, but it'd be nice if you could veer close enough to reality for a moment to at least acknowledge a couple of things:

Barack Obama isn't responsible for cratering the economy.

Things would be a damn sight worse if the stimulus bill had not passed.

Thus, here we are in a very strange moment, where we have the chance to make some real improvements in the way this country operates, and there are people, even those who would benefit, who are opposed to it because televised multi-millionaires have told them they ought to be. I will not go so far as to refer to them as "oligarhs."

Oligarchs, maybe. Plutocrats? Definitely.

I try very hard to see issues and events from all sides, because I have no use for political parties, and no ideology has a lock on good answers or common sense. So, I watch these events, and I wait for the moment where someone says something that makes me think, "Okay, I can agree with you in principle on some of that." But there's just so much WHARRGARBL, that it's nearly impossible to latch on to something that doesn't make you feel lobotomized.

Honestly, I'm to the point anymore where I'm halfway in your corner if you can just say what's bugging you without screaming or starting to cry. The right has turned into the left, all emotion and no brains, just angry, scared, and making everything about everything all the time, which is a classic liberal mistake.

For example, the anti-war protests. You're against the war? Great, march make signs, show the colors. But when the left turns out, PETA shows up, NORML is there, Greenpeace blows in, looking to roll severely obese marchers back into the nearest body of water.

But the right has guzzled down that particular gallon of left-wing stupid. These people who showed up in DC Saturday were angry about health care, that Obama is African, that we have officials called Czars, higher taxes, that Obama is a Muslim, ACORN, the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, to support Joe Wilson, a civilian corps of volunteers to do work in the US, the new combo philosophy of Communist Fascism, that Jesus isn't president, Barney Frank, to take the country back, mandatory abortions for all females over 11, that the country has been mostly destroyed, that "Barack Obama" means "anti-christ" in Hebrew, and just dozens of other really sensible, well-thought out reasons to be upset without needing to admit that the president is colored and that ain't America.

I know that this isn't all about racism, there are legitimate political and philosophical reasons to dislike what the president is doing. But most of this is about racism.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

I was thinking this week about how great the war was going in Iraq, and it took me back to an article I read in the Fall of 2004, about why we had to invade. I know now that it is because we must grant democracy to the Iraqi people, but even three years ago, we had already gone through 21 different reasons for attacking. I shit you not, and here they are:

1) To prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
2) For regime change.
3) To further the war on terror.
4) Because of Iraq’s violation of United Nations resolutions.
5) Because of Saddam Hussein’s evil dictatorship and actions.
6) Because of a lack of weapons inspections in Iraq.
7) To liberate Iraq.
8) Because of Iraq’s ties to al Qaeda.
9) Because Iraq was an imminent threat.
10) To disarm Iraq.
11) To conclude the Gulf War of 1991.
12) Because Hussein was a threat to the region.
13) For the safety of the world.
14) To support the United Nations.
15) Because the United States could (easy victory).
16) To preserve peace around the world.
17) Because Iraq was a unique threat.
18) To transform the region.
19) As a warning to other terrorist nations.
20) Because Hussein hates the United States and will act against it.
21) Because history calls the United States to action.

Now, I suppose Number 18 might cover the whole "grant democracy to the Iraqis" thing, so I won't say that this notion is yet another excuse. But lists aside, have we made any progress?

According to the rather sunny report that General Petraeus delivered to Congress this week, the number of Iraqis being killed in terrorist incidents has dropped by 50% this year (only 2000 a month now!). In spite of this great news, the Iraqi government can't seem to get anything done. There are hopeless divisions due to the different Muslim factions that are trying to get their piece of the action, none of which are willing to compromise, take a step back, or admit that their side may have blood on its hands anytime in the, oh, let's say, eight centuries or so.

If you are willing to acknowledge these facts, you may want to throw your hands up in despair. I look at them, and can only think, "Mission Accomplished." In reverse.

George W. Bush, in his efforts to make Iraq more like the United States, has actually managed to make the US more like Iraq.

In Iraq, we have religious groups who have aligned themselves politically with parties that support their particular dogma. There is not, nor has there ever been, any room for compromise between these parties, because all sides are convinced that they are the only ones who know The Truth.

In the United States, where we used to have a two-party system that was capable of compromise, especially on important issues, we now have idiotic, fruitless (no offense Senator Craig) squabbling, because both parties are certain that their way is the only way to do things, and that compromise is a sign of weakness.

Iraq is in the Middle East, it is overwhelmingly Muslim, and even as an ostensible democracy, would still have an Islamic-oriented government. There could never be an institutionalized writ of separation between church (or mosque) and state.

The United States is predominantly Christian, and even though many of the founders were themselves believers in Christianity, they saw fit to not exclude anyone by having a de facto state religion.

Now, however, we have a government in place which is run at the highest levels by evangelical Christians, whose views on the universe and law are not altogether different than those held by Taliban clerics. They believe god, or more specifically, Jesus, should be a part of every single facet of American life, and that there is no type of charity but that of the Christian variety. They know that to believe otherwise makes one an infidel in this life, and condemned to hell in the next one.

Well, no thanks.

I wish the Iraqis well, but they and their inevitable theocracy can go rot. I want my country back. I want people running things that understand science and the value of research. I want the ones in charge to be able to see past their own selfish desires and dogma, and try to figure out what the consequences of actions might be, not just today but for the next fifty years. I want a president who has doubts, because no one but children and imbeciles could possibly ever have a clear conscience. Certainty, especially the moral brand, is the clearest evidence of a closed mind, and people who claim it ought not be left in charge of anything more important than a microwave oven.

These men who would protect us from evil have instead trashed our Constitution, and lowered us to the level of the enemy whom we proclaim to be so utterly backward in its thinking. And I'm not just talking about our Saudi allies who knocked down the World Trade Center, we have become more like the fascist Communist governments run by Stalin and Mao. We may be a ways off from that level, but we sure as hell are as close to that point as we have ever been.

George W. Bush, the staunch anti-Communist who kept the skies over Texas safe from the Viet Cong in the 1960s, and now battles to keep the American Way intact by taking moral lessons from the worst people on Earth. The 3,000 who died on 9/11/01, and the nearly 3,800 American servicemen and women who have died since then are casualties of a war to promote American-style democracy. It is a war we lost the moment the so-called Patriot Act was signed into law in 2001, and its headstone was cemented in place with the signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which eliminated Habeus Corpus.

We have forfeited our birthright to a group of inbred fanatics who could not take it away from us if they had their numbers increased a thousandfold. And we have done it thanks to the type of leadership one would expect in a third-rate, pissant country like Iraq.

Iraq has American-style democracy all right. If that country even exists in ten years, I'll buy you a Coke.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Saturday, April 17, 2004