Chicken Or the Egg?

North Dakota has enacted a law that makes all abortions illegal. They say that they resolved that most unfathomable question of when life begins, by stating that it begins at conception.

The same people that scream they want less government, want to be sure a woman has a cop in the room when dealing with matters of her own, most intimate and personal decisions.

These compassionless morons care nothing for the age of the victim of rape, incest rape, and seek to make the victims of such horrors "criminals" if they seek an abortion. The suffering of women, to them, inconsequential. And, pretty much, the suffering of children born under such extreme circumstance, is not their problem.

I am wondering how they came to the conclusion of 'Life Begins At Conception'. What science did they consult? Surely, they did not consult the Bible which they like to hold up as the basis for all their thinking.

Had they consulted the Bible, they would have found that the only thing it says about when life begins is 'at first breath'. So, they have taken the Word of God and gone one waaaay better?

But let's say they are right about when life begins. They are, essentially, outlawing contraception because it could 'kill' a fertilized egg. Let us see what North Dakota does with all those children that could not be prevented from being conceived.

What are your plans, financially, for dealing with all those births? Are they going to be welcoming all those children with welcome arms and open checkbooks?

Are they willing to fund, completely, the care and needs of children born with extreme handicaps that are the product of incest/rape? Are they willing to fund, completely, the health and care of the mothers who have been traumatized by incest/rape and who are additionally harmed by the process of a pregnancy that has as an added distress, the circumstances of conception?

And, let us not forget that we have opened the door for PETA, which can now declare that fertilized Chicken Eggs are actually 'chickens' and must be handled with the same care and keeping as their living, breathing parents. They will each, have to have their own cage, or be less than 4 to a carton... and refrigerating them is considered 'cruelty'...

The stupidity of this Bill passed by the ND Legislature is eclipsed only by the arrogance of those who 'conceived' it. By inserting themselves, without justification, into every woman's doctor-patient privacy, and to threaten those women who must, at the most difficult time in their lives, make decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives, they have created a monster government to which nothing is sacred and nothing is private.

If police can come between a woman and her doctor, where can they not go? To say that 'life begins' at conception is an arbitrary statement, based neither on science nor on scripture. These legislators put themselves above the greatest minds and above the very word of God they claim to 'worship' by constructing such an intrusive, vile piece of legislature.

The Doors That Are Opened

If it stands: A woman who miscarries, can be investigated as having committed a crime. For those who have suffered the heartbreak, gut wrenching experience, to also have to face an interrogation to see if she did anything that led to the death of her 'child', is one of the many doors that has been opened here.

Life is Life. If you declare a gamete a human being, you must realize that no extreme is too extreme for the invasion and the abuses of women is too much. Women will conceal their pregnancies and not seek medical attention lest they be vulnerable to police interrogation should her pregnancy fail.

Doctors will have to report any pregnancy as a living child, and that child will have to be followed up the same way a child would be followed up. Will we assigning Social Security Numbers to Fetuses? Every child that is born is assigned a SSN. It would also make following these pregnancies easier for Big Brother, and easier to investigate and have a file name/number for a 'life' that does not yet have a name.

When a woman miscarries, everyone around her will be investigated to see if anything they did, be it violence, smoking, cooking or serving the wrong food, exposing them to viruses or illnesses that could make her sick enough to miscarry, and this includes spouses, friends, her other children, all could be investigated to see if they in any way contributed to the death of that unborn child.

You may think these are extremes, and they are. However, by the laws of North Dakota affording all the rights of a living human being to a gamete, all these events are not just possible, but they are likely to happen.

A pregnant woman who may not even realize she is pregnant and who is employed, can miscarry or reabsorb that gamete, and her employer is then involved to see if they did anything to cause it to happen. Coworkers can be questioned.

If you afford all the rights of a living breathing human being to a gamete, all this is mandatory if that gamete fails to thrive into full term. And the next step will be that all females of child bearing age will have to be examined monthly to determine if they are pregnant, in order to 'protect' that unborn child.

If there are human beings out there, and they are afforded ALL the protections of Citizens, we must of course, have some way of knowing they are there, right? How can we protect them if we don't know they exist? How do we know if they exist if we don't examine every womb?

And, since they are counted as Human Beings, do we include them in the Census?

These seem to be scenarios that would not, in a sane world, occur. But these are the very scenarios that are likely to occur, and which points of law can be constructed to address, now that the Legislators of North Dakota have deemed themselves to be the very Eye of God, in knowing when, exactly, Life Begins.

These so-called "Defenders of Life" have taken a most extreme stand, based on nothing but their own personal ignorance and a driving desire to out-conserve one another in their quest to create an atmosphere of fear and terror for every woman in their state.

Once an insane law is passed, it becomes the foundation for more extreme rulings and laws to be predicated upon.

That door has been opened. Women who are and can prove they are pregnant, can demand from the State of North Dakota, welfare for the care, feeding, housing of their unborn child. If the State denies care to any pregnant woman, and that woman later miscarries or fails to reach term with her pregnancy, can sue the State of North Dakota for failure to support them in such a way that would allow that Human Being to live.

The State itself can be investigated for failure to provide or failure to investigate. The costs to the State of North Dakota will be astronomical. Just on that last one alone.

Law Suits can and will be filed, and the possibility for Class Action against the state by a collection of females whose pregnancies failed, is a possibility.

When the State removes the process of decision making from the woman and her doctor, and puts it firmly in the purview and control of the State, the State becomes the keeper, the responsible party for that pregnancy and all that comes there from.

Next Questions Now, your next questions should be:

"How do we fix it?"

You can't. It is sweeping legislature based on a false premise.

"How do we close it?"
You can't. This kind of change would require much brighter, better minds and intentions than those currently contained in your legislature. You have a batch of hard-core extremists and they are supported by those among them who may disagree with them, but who are too spineless to stand up to them, and to stand up for the people of North Dakota.

All you can do is vote them out. Replace them with people who can at least have the foresight to see down what dark roads extreme legislation such as this, will lead. When the State of North Dakota declared these gametes, fetuses as Human Beings with full rights, they also became the Responsible Party for all that ensues either from that pregnancy, the children that do arrive, and for all the investigations and lawsuits for their failures to protect, that can and will ensue.

I sure hope that between now and the next election, North Dakota has a whole lot of extra money to fulfill their responsibility for this law and all that it entails.

Good luck on that.

Meanwhile, the rapists, murderers of children, are not really an issue that the Legislature thinks important enough to address or pursue. Those who rape and kill infants, but are politically well-connected, get off with a slap on the wrist. Those who rape and kill that are not politically connected, get 30 years.

If your legislators really gave a crap about children, babies or LIFE, they would have, long ago, addressed the issues that affect them AFTER they draw their first breath. So, don't tell me they did anything they did for anything other than political posturing in a time of Extreme Conservatism crash and burn denial.

As long as they can create extreme, unthought out laws such as they have with this one, they feel they still have 'power'.

In a nation and at a time when we are becoming more compassionate, and looking more to working to help one another, there are those who are thrashing and flailing, wild-eyed, and who feel the only way they can hold onto that denial is to be able to create laws so ill-conceived, so extreme that people, if they don't turn these laws around, will be dealing with the aftermath for generations to come.

At a time when our Nation is facing financial/economic collapse due to our ignoring the issues surrounding our economy and instead focusing on fighting over micro issues such as abortion, we have come to see that the people that held the narrowest of views did not have the best interests of our nation at heart, and allowed our nation to become vulnerable in all directions as they worked diligently on removing rights from women, gays, and taking away our basic Civil Rights in total.

That kind of mindset allowed the wolves of Wall Street to ravage our economy, and leave us with the carrion of failing financial fragments.

Appalling to think that at this critical time, when our attention should be focused on fixing the hull of the sinking ship, that the North Dakota Legislators would instead, focus on creating a more hostile, threatening environment for women. And, at the same time, without even thinking of the forward consequences of this legislation, literally, knock more holes into the hull of the State's Financial future.

A whole new and greater crop of mothers and children living in poverty are on their way. Are you ready to pay for their upkeep? Their care? Their housing? This law dictates that you will have no choice because they had no choice.

Burning Loyalty: House on Fire

The President is the President of all the People. Rush Limbaugh is the defacto leader of the Republican Party. He demands absolute loyalty worship. When he told his minions to set the house on fire, they did. When he told them to trip the firemen on their way in to save it, they did.

Escalating deregulation, which began in earnest in Reaganomics, whereby businesses were less and less bound by rules or ethics, or even morals, is what brought us to where we are today. Businesses were allowed to merge, crush competition, and monopolize industries without the bothersome constraints of 'regulations'. Unconscionable incompetence and greed thrived, flourished and collapsed of it's own weight. Affluence turned to effluent in what was the predictable outcome of removing all the laws that would have prevented the disaster we are in today.

The fat man has been a big fan of deregulation. He touted it as if it were the Holy Grail of GOP and GOD. Dutifully, his minions, who acknowledge they could not rise to the level of elections without his guidance, pushed for and got, more and more deregulation. They set the house on fire.

When the fire first started, he scoffed at those who said they smelled smoke and wanted to investigate. They were 'alarmists' using 'scare tactics' and his minions lined up to refute the obvious, and the public was not alerted. Those who tried to sound the alarms were ridiculed.

Now, with the economy going up in smoke, he demands his minions again, line up to trip the firemen as they try to get in and salvage what is left of our economy. Their goal: To make sure that by the time any help gets through, there is nothing left to save. That way, they can blame the President and have a better shot at the next elections. They want to say that Obama let the economy burn down.

The fat man has never had so much power as he does at this moment. He has elected officials doing his bidding, despite his lack of education in the field of economics. They do his bidding because they fear him and his influence over the reactionary masses that elected them.

We, as a nation, have the most intelligent, insightful and gifted president, perhaps of all time. If we are to save ourselves, it must be with everyone pulling towards the same goal. The fat man cares nothing for the nation he seeks only to tear apart, as sport, for the sake of a party that has gone down the wrong road to the point of increasing losses. Fat man feels that if he can sabotage our country enough with his hypocrisy and lies, those who pay his $25Million a year check, will be well pleased.

Obama trying to save the Nation, Limbaugh trying to sabotage the entire country, to boost up a failing party with bad ideas, that are responsible for most of this mess.

Loyalty oaths were taken by these elected officials. Allegiance, to protect and defend the Constitution. However, it appears that a greater, burning loyalty oath was sworn --- to the fat man.

So, in this time of crisis, who ya gonna call? The firemen? Or the fat man?

Looking For A Mascot?

I see the surface threads on the Octomom topic running pretty much along the lines of: "She's insane", "She should not be allowed to raise those children", that sort of thing. People are at first stunned, and then alarmed. It's on the news, it's on Twitter, even the facebookers and bloggers are going apeshit over this woman's decision to keep having babies, the hard way, the expensive way.

I expect that reaction from people who see this as an exercise in the utterly bizarre. (Pun intended). For the record, I agree on that point.

What is NOT being heard is anything from those obnoxious Right To Lifers who want to take away a woman's right to privacy in her own medical care and treatment.

I do not hear them coming out in support of Octomom. From the extremes they have been willing to go to in the past; trying to force a comatose woman to sustain full-term pregnancy, even though it would kill her, over her husband and familie's objections; and trying to force another comatose woman to remain on life support despite the fact that there was no brain activity left for the previous year... why are they silent on Octomom? Should they not be celebrating her?

I would think they would want her as their MASCOT. She embodies everything they promote: She collects children without care as to what the quality of their lives are, and she is willing to go to any length to have as many children as possible. And to keep them all! She could have opted for selective reduction but chose not to. She represents everything they hold dear! Why are they silent? Is she not the hero they have been waiting for?

Faced with embracing her or denouncing her, they have come face-to-face with their own paradox, and they choose to ignore it. She is all their ideals and all that they detest in a dream come true and a walking, talking nightmare manifest, poised to represent all that is their territory.

Octomom brings them face-to-face with the ultimate end game of their ignorant and irrational theory of the ideal pro-life scenario. In her is the mirror into which they dare not look. Reflecting back at them, a series of details they dared never consider, that are now made real and present, for all to see, and for most to recoil therefrom.

The truth is, they dare not speak out in support of that mother, because she does embody their platform, and thereby reveals the gaps in the premise of their logic. They are, in her, faced with the fundamental hypocrisy of their uneven core foundation.

She is keeping her babies. All 14 of them. She is receiving welfare. They are opposed to 'welfare' for people. They are for 'tax breaks, grants' and other forms of corporate welfare, to the largest, most profitable among the giants in industry. But Octomom is on welfare, which they detest, and is keeping her children, which they promote.

They dare not stand on her side of this issue, lest they lose their standing on welfare. They dare not demand that she 'give them up for adoption' as that reveals them as believing only the wealthiest should be allowed to have children. They dare not question her decision to have more and more children.

The costs of maintaining this unemployed mother, her two already special needs children, the 8 new babies, several of whom are expected to also have special needs, is going to be astronomical.

I do not see them holding fund raisers for her. She literally would be the mascot for their ideals, but they do nothing for her? Which means, they would rather the State deal with their ultimate dream come true. Well, perhaps not quite 'ideal'. Maybe if she was comatose?

Why are there no major, Right Wing, Right-To-Lifers proclaiming "Octomom Day"?

One of the most prominent RTL's is the Governor of Alaska. Why has she not invited Octomom to move up there where she could be surrounded by people who think women are only valuable as breeders? She clearly, would be a coup! Imagine that float with Octomom, 14 children, eight of them in a bouquet, in the middle of a parade in downtown Wasilla. How happy that well-run, oil wealthy State would be to welcome her onto the welfare rolls!

She should be on the cover of every conservative rag out there. But they are strangely silent on this one. Dead silent. You get more of them talking about the dog show, than the dog and pony show that is Octomom.

She is the Paradox they cannot fathom. If they support her, they have to support what she is.

If they don't support Octomom, it means they are not supportive of children, or at least raises the question about how far they are willing to go to demand more births, when the mother is not comatose. They risk alienating and defeating their base if they support her or they denounce her. They risk their premise of being pro life, by pointing up that they are against support of those children they demand be born, and who are already here.

If they demand Octomom give up her offspring because she cannot support them, is unemployed, they reveal themselves to be draconian. That premise would have to stand the question: "Do we remove children from homes where people are unemployed?", which leaves millions of families now at risk of losing their children because they lost their jobs.

Children are being born every few minutes. Many to loving homes. Many to families that cannot support them. Some to families that neglect or abuse them. Too many with disabilities and too few with support for those disabilities. Many who are already and who will be abandoned.

Right to lifers demand that all conceptions be carried to term, regardless of rape, incest, or the age of the mother, whether she is 9 years old or in her late 40's or how many children she already has. Right to lifers fight to make contraception inaccessible, and drive up the rates of unwanted pregnancies. The extremists bomb clinics and the 'moderates' do not condemn them, secretly supporting the death and destruction, or possibly afraid to anger the extremists who dictate their policies and beliefs.

We live in a time that has, over time, eroded the support systems for families. Funding cut off, at every turn. Yet, it is the very 'Pro Family' politicians that cut the economic throats of struggling families.

In Octomom, we are presented the ultimate symbol of all that is wrong: Too many children, not enough space, no means of support, and maybe she is a touch more psycho than anyone wants to realize.

In her care 14 children. In our nation, hundreds of thousands, unnoticed, under the radar, almost surfacing in the realization that tens of thousands of families live under these same conditions or worse. Just that their births were not record breaking, and went unheralded by the media.

More and more are here because contraception is too expensive, inaccessible. Rape and incest laws do not protect the mother nor the child in more and more states. The Right to Lifers are getting what they want. Now what?

Octomom gives us 14. We can guess that she may lose custody of all of them as more and more scrutiny yields more aspects about her behaviors that are not in the best interests of the children. Where do we put, what do we do, with all her children? Or, for that matter, any of the children who are here without support or protection?

Where do we put them all? Who ultimately, is responsible for them? Open-ended questions become glaringly apparent. Silence from the extreme Right, lest those questions rear their many ugly heads in the nation's awareness. Silence, the only option, lest their emperor shiver in the cold, and his new clothes of fine invisible threads, and we notice his shriveled shortcomings.

Let's say the extreme Right Wing got their way, and welfare is eliminated, and abortion is illegal, everywhere, regardless of circumstance. We have then, families where a mother is incapacitated or deceased because of a life-threatening, or health impairing pregnancy. Children will be born that have multiple handicaps, and perhaps no mother, and perhaps no father. Older children will suddenly have no mother, and no support from the government because 'welfare' is a bad word.

Now, what do we do with all these children? Many of whom are beyond the age of cute where they are easier to adopt, some of whom have disabilities, all of whom are traumatized by the death of a parent, and of being pushed around in a system that is only a couple of steps away from being a criminal organization (neglect of children, placement in abusive homes, placement with molesters).

Remember: There are tens of thousands of children who spend their entire childhood in orphanages or in Foster Care, because there are no homes for them. No support for them after they turn 18, where many end up on the streets. Many if not most, who have been abused.

Octomom presents us with 14 children who require public assistance. It seems like a lot. It is but a grain of sand. In her situation, perhaps because it is extreme and creates media buzz, we see the plight of single parenting, children in poverty, the need for welfare and child support. Also made visible is the ultimate end game of the extreme belief that the more children a woman has, the better.

Conversly, if government can tell a woman she must go through with an unwanted pregnancy, does it also have control over how many children she is allowed to have? If you control one, you control the other. How do you bring about reconciling that little conundrum without allowing birth control and abortion to be the jurisdiction of the mother and her doctor? Do you march in, by law, and limit how many children people in certain income levels can have? How do you do that?

If government dictates they cannot be contracepted, must be born, is government then responsible for the care of those who cannot be cared for by their parents alone?

In Octomom is the mirror of Right Wing fallacies, magnified, personified, and brought to life for all of us to see.

She epitomizes the hypocrisy of the Extreme Right Wing. If they embrace her, they have to agree that welfare is necessary. If they demand she give her children up because she is unable to care for them without welfare, they reveal the foundation of their movement is to support only the wealthy who can afford to have and keep children. The poor would be relegated to breeding for the infertile/unable wealthy who desire children, but can have none on their own.

Their silence on this matter reveals much. They are unable to reconcile a single mom, unemployed, 14 children, welfare, special needs, disability with their rosy, absolute rhetoric. I think that if they want to walk the talk they should, all of them, tithe to the support of all those children and keep her as their mascot. They are silent on her as they are on all the children who need help, support and compassion. It is only noticeable on her because she is so visable, and her case so extreme.

If they think that her unregulated breeding is wrong, they should step up and say so. But they can't. They have painted themselves into a corner, and Octomom and her litter of 8 plus the previous 6, have them surrounded and paralyzed by their own paradox when the moment is upon them.

Their unwillingness to step in and support her, financially or politically, tells me they are the hypocrites I always thought they were. Just more cowardly than I thought they could be.

How ironic that the one mother that would embody their core beliefs so well, is a woman who may be mentally unstable. Just what the doctor ordered.

Single, maternally inclined, without income, sucking on the tit of the State for support, She is everything they demand and despise, all rolled into one.

Let the Right Wing Extremists run for cover on their hypocrisy. That's them in the corner, with the blanket pulled up over their heads, thinking we can't see them if they ignore this.

I think we can see them revealed more clearly by their silence on this event, compared to their noise on comatose women, into whose lives they forced themselves and whose families they dragged through courts, draining them of finances, and energy at crucial times of crisis, simply for the sake of political exercise. Now is their time, and they cower out of sightline of mainstream media.

The OTHER Question

From my point of view, the other question that needs to be asked is this: "Where did she get the funds to have these procedures?" I know people who have undergone in-vitro methods. $12-25K on up for each pregnancy. She has had 7 pregnancies that we know of.

With no income except for food stamps and disability checks for two of her kids, where did she get the money? If she took it from the support for her children, she broke the law. If she had other income, such as disability, and used that for this, she broke the law. If she had other income that has not been reported, she broke the law.

There are a lot of issues and a lot of noise surrounding Octomom. What's important here is more urgent than the noise: There are 14 children living in substandard conditions, possibly in the care of a mentally ill woman. Their safety and well-being needs to be investigated before we do anything else.

And while we are at it, remember this: Millions of former foster children, unadopted, abused, are currently on the streets and in our prisons. What are we doing to to break that vicious cycle and relieve the strain on our economy, and on our sense of security?

If we are going to have more children out there, perhaps we should consider having more funding and protection for single parents and parents of the disabled, so that we can, with our compassion, have the next generation that can take care of themselves, and us, rather than the other way around.

We are struck by Octomom's irresponsibility. Shouldn't we take a closer look at the effects of our society shirking it's responsibilities and realize that despite being costly in the early years, yields over the long run, a greater savings in money, and in the dignity of our lives.

She is a record-breaking aberation, for sure. She is selfish and immature. She thinks only of what she wants and what her needs are. But she is also the symbol for all that is wrong in how we view our responsibility to children in our society. She is the mirror of that process and reflects to where it all leads, if we don't change how we view our responsiblity to one another.

Is our silence on the issue of children living in poverty a lack of concern for them? How long can we ignore it before another symbol, something even more extreme, presents us to ourselves again?

Children are the future. We are putting them through hell and storing them in prisons. If the future is not worth fighting for, what is?

We may not like the mothers who bring the future into this world, but they are here now and the more we try to ignore them, the more we pay in the long run.

Octomom brings the ludicrous to light. I sense our outrage and concern is for the well-being of her children. Shouldn't it be for all the children?

The next time issues of funding come up as relates to poverty, children, families... take a second look. The next time the RTLs stomp and spit and try to take away a woman's right to choose, just remember who, ultimately, will be responsible for that child's raising, well-being and perhaps warehousing in some prison.

Remember that when it was just one mom, 14 children, they did nothing. Expect the same when it is others and more.

Maybe it would be better to allow women to choose their own medical procedures, for their own reasons, without the irresponsible loudmouth right wing hypocrites interfering in something they really don't care about. Remember that when that time came for them to put up, they just chose to shut up.

If they really cared, if they really believed, they would have a parade in her honor and shower her with their gold. She is, afterall, exactly what they thought they wanted.

Surrounded by The Fog

Sometimes, I think the world has become more surreal in the US and more real in other countries. Like we are surrounded by a ring of fog.

It's like we are in a fishbowl, being observed by the entire world and we are oblivious to what the world is clearly seeing.

We just had the most bizarre elections of our history. An election that follows 8 years of the US stumbling, falling from grace and alienating almost every nation and offending our allies. The world was watching as our economy, which used to be the most powerful in the world, lost power, nose-dived, taking all economies down with it.

In the middle of this nose-dive, we changed pilots. The world was cheering us on as we elected a man the world believes will redeem us. Obvious to the world, as it should be to us, the failed policies of 'trickle down' and corruption, are fail.

I think the rest of the world thought we, as a nation, had come to our senses and would now help this pilot, who is trying with all his might, to pull this nation out of the most certain crash landing.

I sense the other nations of the world have just taken a step back, and sucked in a disbelieving gasp as our elected officials, instead of pulling together, are battling in the cockpit, trying to get more tax breaks for their wealthy influential corporate friends. Failing at that, to obstruct for the sake of obstruction, the work of saving our economy, as if it were mere sport and points scored for stalling the home team, are awarded.

Greed, corruption, ineptness, insanity all, brought us to this steep decline. There are those who want to get one more big score before the party is over. Despite millions of jobs vaporizing, homes being vacated, the economy swirling the porcelain bowl, the circus that is our government, seems morally, ethically and mentally disconnected from the dangers of their actions, or their inactions.

Obstructionists acting as if they are somehow immune to the consequences or accountability for what has happened and for that which will surely follow, heed only the most extreme voices in their ego wounded world.

A world apart from other nations. A world surrounded by fog, unable to connect the dots of their previous wrong thinking to the disastrous outcome we now find crippling our nation. In the fog of their world, the rules are different, and lessons need not be learned. Failures become other people's problems. Where lies and twisted logic, spin and fiction substitute for reality. On that plane of existence, everyday is a circus and cartoons come to life.

Elected officials grovel for forgiveness at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, who has become the defacto deity of the GOP. As if the surreal insanity of putting Sarah Palin up as the running mate of John McCain was not enough idiocy, the GOP now seeks to redefine itself in the comic book trinity of Limbaugh, Palin and Joe the Plumber. ( A drug addict, a babbling beauty queen and a tax dodger walk into a bar...nevermind)

That unholy trio, who just this past week or two, realized we are in an economic disaster, and have taken the most bizarre actions to thwart any recovery:

• Denounce the current president as being the cause of it
• Demand even more tax breaks, -- their last grab greed.
• Rail on about how this spending is running our future into debt. Suddenly they are against debt?
  

The world watches as an angry, vicious minority, holds our nation hostage. Demanding tax breaks for the wealthiest if allowed for the middle class. Make it proportional. It's only fair. You and I get a thousand dollars, and the Bill Gates of the country get $20-30 million.

One Congressman, a Republican who proudly did the fat man's bidding, and voted against the stimulus package, Rep. Don Manzullo, (R-Illinois) said that his idea was to "give everyone a $5,000 voucher." They could all go and buy "a good Jeep Patriot with that.".. Get another 25% discount, and then only have payments of $300 a month or so. That's what we need to get our economy running. See: http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/2009/01/30/best-recession-money-can-buy/

The world is watching as our economy, losing altitude, is screaming towards the river, and morons like that are fighting for control? There are no life rafts, no jackets those were gifted to the baffoons of Wall Street. We go under, we drown. You may want to kiss your ass goodbye, or use it as a floatation device...

And the lot of them, smiling and proud that they offered nothing (Republicans said that they had better ideas that they plan to roll out in a few months...) but posed for pictures, smiling much the same way a hunter poses with his kill.

I see the US, having become so ethnocentric that we are somehow unaware of how the world outside of our borders views us. The world danced and rejoiced when Obama was elected. When was the last time our election carried so much import to the world? When were other nations happy FOR US?

The world, having been torn apart by the ineptness, and corruption of the past eight years, was happy for US! As if some suspense novel had a new chapter and we might be able to save ourselves.

And now, the world, a helpless audience, staring into the ring of fog that surrounds our nation. A zoo of insanity, greed, and stupidity, snarls and tears as the better half of us tries to save all of us, abides within. The lesser portion strives to bring us down, like some sort of kill trophy, to lay at the feet of their deity, for the approval of the trinity of Limbaugh, Palin and Joe The Plumber.

We have no idea how much peril we are in. The world is watching. It must seem like a poorly written horror movie, where you know the crazed killer is behind the curtain, and no matter how much you scream at the TV, the girl is going to open that curtain...and be slaughtered. Just as you think help is on the way, they take a wrong turn... and the plot drags on.

I imagine the world is peering into that ring of fog that surrounds us, screaming at us to not listen to the Cartoon Trinity, and to not open that curtain, and to not lose our way before we can save ourselves. I imagine they feel helpless as they watch the once most powerful nation in the world, politically implode with tantrums and insanity.

They thought that us electing a brilliant, well-spoken man as our president was all that was needed for us to save ourselves. They now realize that almost half of our family is crazy, stupid, and greedy, and one man cannot do it all.

Because of the fog, we may not have a real clear picture of where we are as a nation, and in this world. But if we could see what the world sees we would see that we, as a nation, are in a state of emergency. The economy is crashing and the dust cloud is sweeping the nation. Some public servants are running into the building to save us, and others are trying to trip them on the stairs.

An Inconsistent Truth

We view the extremes in weather, the world over, polar caps melting, glaciers vanishing, more and more extreme flooding, increasingly powerful hurricanes, and droughts that are continent-wide. The evidence of Global Warming, is everywhere.

Still the ranting from the non-believers, the most public and published of whom are lobbying or paid for by industries that rake in billions and who do not want to be environmentally responsible, declare that, contrary to all logic and common sense, Global Warming is a fraud.

Worse, they declare, repeatedly, that those highly respected scientists are somehow profiting from 'scaring us'.

They present no proof to contradict the clear evidence of environmental distress. They just claim it ain't so, Joe.

They do have pseudo scientists on their side, none of whom are published in any of the respected forums. Yet, these so-called 'scientists' demand and often receive not only equal time in public discourse, but there are some stations, who have already declared they are not really NEWS and therefore are not subject to the rules of journalism or reporting (Much like WWE is not real 'wrestling' but rather, choreographed 'entertainment'), which promotes the prattle of these nay sayers, full time. These promulgators of propaganda say that, contrary to all scientific evidence available, the poles are increasing in mass! They present no facts, no science. They don't have to. It's not real information. It's "newsertainment".

The people behind these shows are not concerned with the truth of anything. They know how to promote fear to the ignorant. They know how to divide and conquer. They know how to manipulate a frightened public. It is what they excel at. They want you to ignore the common sense information and true facts that could unite us for our common good.

They point to the extreme cold in some areas and declare 'Global Warming is Dead!'. Of course, they completely ignore the other continents where there are droughts that have broken all records: Severity, spectrum, duration and intensity.

Global Warming is not the whole world in drought. Global warming is evidence by extreme imbalances in climates. The pendulum swings more and more wildly. The end game of Global Warming, after all the land masses have been thrown out of kilter, can be one of two outcomes: We become mostly desolate, like Mars, or we plunge into another ice age.

The future is in our hands. The money is in the hands of the powerful. Listen to what makes sense. Listen to what you can do, we can do, we all must do, to mitigate and diminish the wild range of swing in that pendulum.

Since 'newsertainment' is commonly mistaken for facts and information, we must begin the process of educating ourselves on topics that affect our lives. Instead of turning on the tube, go to the library and check out books that are written by people who are authentic in their field. If that is too much for us, and for many it is, then don't swallow whole the prattle that comes out of the mouths of people who are promoted and paid for by those who are destroying our climate, our environment. Common sense will tell you that continuing to add more chemicals, continuing to pollute, continuing to rape the land without thought of the future, will and does have far-reaching consequences -- to US.


As long as we remain divided, and especially if we continue to waste our energy fighting one another, swatting at swarms of fiction, we are less able to come together and resolve the very issues that are affecting all of us, whether it is the economy or the environment. As long as we have our hands firmly around one another's neck, we cannot get a handle on the corruption that is, at this moment, killing us all. We cannot fix what is wrong with our government, as long as we cannot find common ground with one another.

Newsertainment is out there to mislead us. At the very least, to confound and confuse the public at large. They know their audience is not educated. They prefer it that way. So do their sponsors.

Real science programs can be interesting. Unfortunately, some of our most brilliant scientists are not photogenic, and they speak in dull tones. But they have real information. Don't be distracted by the shiny, sparkly, loud mouths out there. Time to think again.

If we but look behind the curtain to glimpse the character of those promoting the fear and mistrust of science and economics, we find little bullies who are guilty of a range of bad and illegal behaviors:

Bill O'Riley stalked and threatened a woman producer who refused to have sex with him. He threatened her life! Not satisfied with making her work miserable and getting her fired, he called and harassed her and threatened her safety. He paid for it in a civil suit. But he never lost his job. Character is not an issue for Fox News. Most of their 'discussion' panels involve people who have no concept of the topics they discuss.

Rush Limbaugh, that paragon of Right Wing Virtue, the defacto diety of the GOP, who blasted the poor, the sick and the abused as "lazy," and who said that drug addicts should be jailed or worse; was himself, and remains, an oxycontin junkie. He doctor shopped. He had his housekeeper go out and make his buys for him. He served no time in jail. He makes $25M+ per year. Do you?

Whom do you think they serve? What master drives them?? Surely, not one that is acquainted with the truth. Not one that is concerned with Right and Wrong. What kind of Master would that be? What altar do they worship at?

Nice that those who listen to these paragons of virtue, don't mind that it comes from the sexual stalker mentality, the under educated, and the junkies of the airwaves.

These same morons laughed at and derided reports put out by economists that warned of, get this, an economic meltdown that would be globally disasterous. They laughed years ago, and they were still snarking at it in September. What did you expect from the rapist and junkie mentality?

But, since our future is crumbling before our eyes, should we not in fact, open our eyes and take a look at where we are now, how we got here, and what we have to do to get out of it? Do we have to tolerate more tax cuts for the billionaires before we engage in saving the rest of us?

Why did we cut benefits to mothers and children on welfare? Why did we have to cut medical care to women? We just gave more to billionaires and cut benefits to people who will now be on the streets. It was either that, or nothing? What have we become as a nation? What voices in our heads are we listening to?

The truth does not change. Our ability to perceive and understand it depends on our level of fear and how much we have become reactionary. (Education, common sense, anyone? Anyone? Buehler?)

Remember: The voices demanding more for the wealthy were silent or dismissive on warnings, and supportive of policies that are destroying us. Their outrage now and efforts to derail any rescue are shameful. Their tantrums and power plays at a time when we as a nation, are going under, are shameful. Their outrage is a sham. Their desperation to hold onto and increase their power is obvious.

The poles are melting. The economy is in meltdown. Can we afford to listen to the power junkies?

Fighting The Fog: Around and Within

We find ourselves going over the cliff, economically, for the economic idiocy that began in the Reagan years. The justification for beginning the transfer of wealth to the wealthiest few, and away from the middle class, on the theory that very rich people can 'trickle down' on the lower spectrum of the economy, proved disastrous.

Each year, the deficit grew, median income dropped. The gap between the very wealthy and the middle class widened, while the gap between middle class and poverty became more fragile.

The past 8 years where even increased 'tax breaks' for the wealthiest few, coupled with multi-billion dollar 'gifts' from our then President Bush to the Oil companies, who had just raked in their largest quarterly profit in history, along with every other failed economic policy and the rampant greed and corruption, fueled by progressively more deregulation and nullifying rules and oversight, may have been the fatal blow to our economy.

I am sure that a pointless war, the botched, corrupt response to national disasters, continue to rot the economic foundation that has been rocked, reeled and is keeling over.

That's us, dogpaddling in the middle of an economic tsunami, surrounded by fog, trying to figure out A:) how we got here, B:) How to get out of this, and C:) How to make sure it never happens again. You'd think we would all be pulling together on this one. Our very lives depend on it. Millions are going under every month. This is an exponentially declining model.

Instead of pulling together, the very same swiss cheese policies that have ruptured and destroyed the once strongest economy in the world, are being shouted by the fat man on the radio who wants ---MORE tax breaks for the wealthy. For blue collar workers who struggle every day to support their families, he wants them to get their wages cut.

The fat man is paid $25M a year by a corporation that pays him to lobby his minions to champion tax breaks for himself and for them. They are the powerful who have been bleeding the system for almost 30 years now.

They can only continue bleeding us, if we remain too engaged in battling each other to see what it is they are doing, and who is acting on their behalf, to hold anyone accountable and save ourselves.

If elected officials from his realm step out of line and say he is not their deity, they can be heard the following day, groveling for his forgiveness and reaffirming his role as their leader. Yet, most of his followers are the very same people whose wages he wants cut, while giving himself a bigger tax break.

There was a time when a simple-minded blowhard like this would not be heard outside of is own front porch, ranting and railing, demanding more for himself and demanding less for others. People would ignore him as crazy and his rants would occasionaly draw a middle finger salute from the annoyed.

But we have had this weird fog around us for a very long time. People can be made fearful and reactive. He serves the purposes of those who thrive on the fat of the land while setting us to do battle of the ugliest most divisive sort, wounding and crippling ourselves; our sense of nation fragmented to smaller and smaller pieces of 'thems' and 'us's', while the fat boys laugh.

When I see John McCain, a man with so many houses and cars, he has lost count; a man whose life of wealth and privilege have given him every advantage and removed every consequence from his path of arrogance, ignorance and selfishness; who was allowed to advance in his military career while breaking every rule, flunking out at the bottom of his class, crashing every plane; promoted over and over again, while others whose lesser offenses resulted in court martial or being drummed out of the corp-- when I see him stand up and criticize a spending bill that will rescue people who are, today, out of a job, and him demanding 'more tax breaks' which will benefit, mainly people of his level of wealth, allowing them to 'trickle' on the rest of us, if they want to-- or to not. When I see people like McCain and Limbaugh cannibalizing any chance of unity for the sake of political sport, I wonder what it is so many people think they are doing.

I wonder what it will take for our nation to come out of the fog and realize that these blowhards are not economic geniuses, nor do they care about anyone who is not in their pay grade.

When the political opponents of Barack Obama, a man who came from a family that had to struggle on food stamps, and who had to get scholarships and work his way through college, was labeled an 'elitist', and that chant was picked up, I feared for our nation.

Clearly, the disadvantaged had allied themselves, with the elitists masquerading as 'one of us' while denouncing the epitome of the American Dream of succeeding through hard work and overcoming disadvantages, as an 'elitist'. People bought into that. They bought into it with their racism, their anger, their ignorance, their confusion, and their fear.

The 'elitists', whose lives of privilege and advantages could label the other guy as 'elitist' and people bought it made one thing clear: The truth did not matter. All that matters in the fog of ignorance and fear, is the loudest voice. Common sense, truth, decency, had lost their value in the arena where our candidates vie for our votes.

Against all odds, against the oppressive constant fear-mongering, a man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama, became number 44. Out of the fog, came "Hope".

Determined to salvage our economy, and to impact those most affected immediately and to sustain any recovery over the long haul, legislation was crafted.

These are such strange times. Poised on the edge of greatness or disaster, a suicide mentality rages over the airwaves, whipping the fearful into an army of ignorance, while the greater part of our nation bleeds, and our soldiers are dying in a far away land, in a war that we have not begun to end, but which is ending us. A war praised by the fat man, who laughs at those who follow him, and congressmen who grovel at his feet for forgiveness.

Republicans opposed the rescue legislation, as a wall. Despite getting ammendments they said they wanted, they stood against it because the fat man told them to. The fat man, who has no economic worries, no understanding of the economy, told them not to. He needed to affirm his power by a show of force, at the cost of precious time.

The senate now debates this bill, and the fat man's minions oppose it because it is not perfect. The battle comes down to our president trying to save the lives and jobs of a nation, and the fat man who wants to prove that there are enough stupid people in the nation to make him wealthy, and do his bidding, regardless of who he hurts, even if it kills them.

Asked what proposal they had to counter the one they said was not good enough, they said that they "plan to roll that out in the next few months". With a million or more people losing their jobs every month, what's their hurry?

Clearly, the urgency and importance of this as relates to the nation's crisis, is lost on them. Clearly, the more important thing, in this greatest time of crisis, while the jobs are vaporizing, the homes are vacating, markets are collapsing, is that the losing party throw a tantrum on the public floor, and demand "More Tax Breaks", and no money goes to those who 'are not working'. Those who are still working, blue collar, must lose wages.

When we get out of the fog, you will probably ask yourself: "Whose interests were they serving?" We may never know for sure, but for sure we will know that it was not in the best interests of our nation, nor the men, women and families that make us who we are as a nation.

Then, you might remember the fat man, giving orders from his perch, tugging on his cigar, getting a chubby when he proved to the world that congressmen grovel at his feet. Maybe we can all see more clearly then, that we could have saved ourselves faster and better, had we not been engaged in a battle over power that none of us could win. It's not about dominance; It's about unity. Failing to see that will cost us all that is left of what is left of our nation.

We are a great nation. We are a nation conceived on the impossible dream where a handful of hopeful warriors defeated the most powerful empire in the world. We rose to be the strongest nation, and the nation of greatest hopes where people of other lands aspired to become one of us, and live their dreams. The nation to which other nations looked for inspiration and for guidance and assistance. We were that nation. But are we still?

We can become great again. But we have to do that which makes us stronger. We would never have become a nation if we did not share the dream of equality. We cannot pursue the politics of division without suiciding our democracy. We cannot allow misinformation, deceptions, to hold the same weight as things that are true, decent and fair. Lies are not equal to truth. Blowhards are not fighting for us. Fighting one another because a fat man who is paid $25M a year to keep us fighting, insures that we all lose.

We are running out of time. Flailing away in the fog, swatting down swarms of lies, drains us all. We can, as a nation, wake up and decide that we will, as a nation, come together and save ourselves. We can decide that as a nation, there are things that affect us directly, as a nation that are worth fighting for or against. That there is a time and a place for power plays and tantrums, but this is not the time or the place for vile, inflammatory rhetoric.

Look around. That's us dogpaddling in a sea of economic fallout. More have gone under, more are getting weary and will soon go under, while we fear and mistrust one another. It is like we should be coming together so we don't drown, but instead, we are dogpaddling and fighting the fog.

I hear the fat man laughing. I have to go now. I want to hear what his orders are to our elected officials who are afraid to do any bidding but his.

End

Our Imaginary Country

Don't Bank On It

I am amused and darkly so, when I hear the mindless rantings of these bloated 'talk show' hosts who make their living creating fear and suspicion that drives us to the extreme left and the extreme right of the political spectrum.

One point we all need to come together on, is the economy. Trust me, you don't know what you think you know.

We get angry as we watch the banks take our economic life's blood, all of it, for themselves, and then we have no way of finding out where the money went. We know of some of the scandals: Jets, remodeling of bathrooms, the most recent 'junket' to Wynn's casino to reward all those hard working mortgage brokers--- the very ones that broke the economy and mortgaged our grandchildren's future.

We know about those things, and get angry. And then we know that they are coming back for more. Like the bear that breaks into your cabin in winter, takes what it wants and leaves, you know it's coming back for the rest because it knows where it is, and you can't stop it.

The banks do this with total contempt for the people it is driving out of their homes, and for the politicians that made it possible.

And we are going to give them more?

Then there are the blowhards on 'Talk Radio' that think it is wrong for us to nationalize the banks because that is like socialism and socialism is almost communism. And I hear the minions flaming about how they don't want the banks nationalized! They are not going to watch our country go down that slippery slope, and other cliches, to 'communism'!

I wonder how they would feel if they knew how they were being played for fools while the banks laugh?

The problem with banks is simple. Not one of them is U.S. owned. Not one. They are all owned by foreign governments. Since 1980, not one is ours.

What did you think all those mergers were about? Aren't you glad we got rid of all those silly regulations that used to prevent our banks from being sold to the highest bidder? Oh yeah, the lobbying, and the campaign contributions have worked wonders. The word "Regulation" became ugly.

Now look at us. How does "Economic Meltdown" sound to ya? Wear it for awhile. Get used to it.

France, United Arab Emeritus, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Japan and China, own the largest share of them. No other country allows all their banks to be owned by foreign powers. Most allow none of them to be owned by others. Common sense.

That is why, when our banks failed, the economies of those countries began to circle the porcelain. That is also why we can't get answers out of them. They are not subject to our laws. That is why we don't know where the money went, because it did not stay in this country, it went to theirs.

If we don't stop the dollar hemorrhage, by making the banks we do business with, OUR banks; and if we don't make sure that the dollars we pour into them stay in our pond, this becomes an exercise in denial that will, literally, bankrupt us with no way back.

So, what is the bigger boogy man here: nationalizing banks so we can rescue ourselves? Or the imaginary danger that we are becoming commies?

You can bank on that blowhard on their talk radio misdirecting you to think that we have to fear and fight one another. He gets paid millions to keep us at each others throats. He is being paid to misdirect the anger that is out there so no one looks at the real problem and figures out the real solution. Keeping us divided, is key to how we got where we are today.

Apparently, he will say anything as long as you pay him millions to say it. His sole job is to whip the dwindling Right Wing into darker and darker fears and mistrust of their fellow Americans.

You'd think a smart guy like him would have at least given you the facts about the banks, so you could make up your own mind as to where the real dangers are. Then again, if the extreme Right Wing was about being educated and constructive, he would not have any following at all.

He just wants you to be afraid. Our economy is crashing, and he tells his congressional minions to do nothing to save their own country. And they obey. Fearful that they will be the next elected official to have to publicly grovel to him if they offend him in any way, they obey.

Your friends and families are being ground down, losing everything. The bloated hypocrite, chuckles, tugs on his cigar, and laughs all the way to the bank. You really think he cares about you? Not unless you pay him extra.

Now, go, tell your friends the truth about the banks. Maybe they will turn off the radio and start thinking of ways we can work together to save ourselves, this time. Maybe not. But it's worth a try.

You know where to find me.
~Cat

Worth a Thousand Words

Symbols: Real Language

The one common language throughout the world is symbols and symbolism. Not that all symbols mean the same thing to all people, all though many to many do, but the fact that our minds process both our language, and the thoughts that drive us, by symbols.

Words elicit feelings. We don't spell out each word in our thoughts; rather, we clump symbols together at such a rapid rate, we don't have time to think about it.

Children, before they master verbal skills, express the symbolism of their feelings in their drawings. Anger can be dark scribbles, happiness can be birds in the sky... symbols of feelings.

Our common language processing, being symbols, is exploited by those who understand it better than we do. Ads are crafted in words, colors, sounds and behaviors that all leave, to one degree or another, an indelible branding on our memories that can be 'activated' either by repeating the full advertisement process, or later, after sufficient symbol relationship recognition, merely flash the logo and the product, the slogan comes to mind. "Head ON! Apply Directly..." I think we can all finish that one by now, and we all know what it is and does.

Look at the logos of the most prominent brands, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, thouughts of food can be triggered by the images alone, regardless of how long it has been since the last meal. Some advertisements have specific jingles, or signature music that when played, or even begun to be played, is automagically finished by our minds, which accesses the language/smbols/memory banks, retrieves the correct associations, completing the message before the message has more than begun.

Brand recognition is more important to the sale of products/success of a business, than the actual quality of that product. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than on R &D. No wonder we can't cure the common cold!

Math, Music, Alphabets, playing cards... all compiled of symbols. Happiness, sadness, anger, thanks to the happy face and it's derivations, all easily portrayed by symbols.

Our dreams are exclusively the domain of symbols and symbolism. It is where all that is available for us to know, learn and review about ourselves, our world and our lives, resides in that terrain, and yet, most of us are almost instantly dismissive of our dreams or the dreams of others, as 'worthless'.

Could it be we are missing, dismissing, snarfing contemptuously at, our greatest treasure? The one True Key to greater understanding?

Look at all the things that are practically a reflex in our thinking: Dreams= Nonsense; Coke=Thirsty (want fries with that?); Movies=Popcorn; cars= status; UFOs=not possible; homeless=drugs/alcohol/lazy; Diamonds=love, wealth. Love and wealth becomes 'wealth= happiness' --and it goes on.

We literally have topics we are afraid to think about lest we be ridiculed or go astray! Ridiculing UFO or supernatural experiences is a reflex in our society, overall, despite the fact that most believe they exist!

Symbols of Power

The crafting and sculpting of symbols for products is a long thought out process. Every aspect is explored. Companies pay millions for logos and our government guards closely the symbolism that resides upon our money, our buildings and the language of our laws and slogans. They are crafted, not by fairies and elves, but by those who study the deepest mechanisms of our minds, and who know the maps to our reactions better than we do.

The religious iconography seeks to trigger an almost submissive, unquestioning obeisance, towards those who carry those icons as symbols of their status/role in this life. For this reason, the most powerful churches in our nation seem to be above the law, and we do not question why. A priest accused of molestation is first turned in to his superiors, and they decide if it is true or not. There are many big cities where the church tells the police what to investigate and what is not their business, when it comes to these matters.

A woman turned to the police when she discovered that both her boys had been molested by their parish priest. The police officer told her to first 'go through the proper channels' and notify the church! Essentially, she was told that until the church agreed to have itself investigated, she could not file charges.

Churches and Badges are powerful symbols. In our minds they are linked with God and Good. Those who exploit the symbolism of their rank or position, do the most damage. They cut deeper than the experience in itself. They wound the psyche, and our foundation of symbols cracks. How does one reconcile a symbol of Godliness or Authority with the abuses without running into every wall of conflict at every turn? And what can those symbols be replaced with that would carry that part of the psyche safely through the rest of this ordeal? The conflicts are irreparable.

As a society, we still attach to badges and the trappings of religion with such high and pure ideals that even after repeated events prove the corruption at all levels, and we are horrified, we nonetheless accept the word of a priest, or cop, judge, or government official, as having more credibility than the words of their victims. This despite the fact that most of us can identify with the victims more than we can identify with those who carry the symbols of power.

Mind control relies entirely on the associations of symbols with pleasant or unpleasant intentions and meanings. Symbols are encoded for maximum effect, and we react to those symbols in fairly predictable ways. Most of the time.

Power of Symbols

When we think of China, do we see the Olympics? A bustling society? Probably. But in the back of all our minds, those of us who were alive at that time is another symbol: Tianamen Square. We sometimes see the paper maché statue of liberty erected by the protesters who were seeking more democracy. The statue to them, symbolic of Liberty. They were waiting for other nations, our nation, to support them. They were rolled over, as they slept, at night, by the tanks, sent by the government, to squash them. We remember that because of another incident, rife with symbolism, broadcast the world over: One man, a businessman, with his jacket draped over one arm, his briefcase in his hand, defying a tank.

Because of that, we remain, regardless of our connections and business dealings, and despite our friendships with Chinese People themselves, skeptical, even suspicious of their government.

That one symbol so powerful that it has yet to be erased or even overcome by all the other symbols coming at us with regard to China.

The men raising the flag at Iwo Jima was so powerful at eliciting a fervant patriotic 'high' in our citizens, that our government, when it commissioned the statue to be cast of that event, wanted it to NOT contain one of the people that was in it. One of the people that belongs to a race of people that our government has been, since the beginning, trying to make us forget. They wanted the power of our most inspiring, patriotic moment to be altered to not feature Ira Hayes. Ira Hayes was an American Hero, and "American Indian", and our country wants us to think that Indians don't exist, and don't matter any more. They took a powerful symbol, and altered it, lest we be reminded that we are all Americans. January 12, 1923, Ira Hayes was born. He was a hero at Iwo Jima by age 19, and erased by an act of congress that commissioned the immortalization that excluded him, lest Indian People have a symbol of heroism common to us all.

With all these symbols being generated and stored in our collective psyche, shouldn't we stop to question, from time to time, when they are altered, 'why?'.

I see nothing wrong with associating symbols with products, countries, or spiritual meanings. But I do become suspicious when the most archetypical of them, the ones that reside the deepest in our coding, is twisted or broken. You know that it does not happen by accident.

Raising A Symbol/Erasing A Symbol

By removing a modern day hero to Indian People, and erasing him from the written and retold history, an clear attempt at a deep and wounding genocide of Indian People took place and is still in process.

China, despite all it's muscle and clout, cannot erase the image of that one man, for that moment, defying the column of armored tanks. It is a powerful symbol that is in each of us that reminds us, that at some point, regardless of how overwhelming the challenge and the opposition, we must stand up... even if we only stand alone.

As soon as we come to realize how that is in all of us, the sooner we will realize that we can stand up. And, if we are lucky, we will look around and see, that we are not alone.

The power of the symbolism contained in that one act of defiance, is beyond words.

Those who seek to control us must first control the language common to us all- symbolism. Question why a true symbol has been altered to a less true one, and you will, in your own way, be standing up, quietly defiant. And for that moment and the moments like that that follow, you will be your own person.

Indelible

The one thing true about symbols is that they are cumulative. Once added, they cannot be deleted. Our psyches, individually and collectively, are constantly harvesting and collecting symbols.

If you are going to make a symbolic gesture of some sort, make it count.

You know where to find me.

~Cat