ACME No Questions, I'll Tell You No Whys

Desperation and Fear Tactics

Part of the problem has been that most of what we needed to know about the spill was kept from us. We were lied to. We were misled. And they are still doing it. "They" are BP and the politicians they have in their pockets. From the local sheriffs who take orders from BP, to the elected in Federal, State and even local politics.

BP has done more to try and protect their image than they ever did to protect the environment in which they operate to extract the product that creates their boundless wealth.

The camera angles we are given are very likely only the ones they want us to have. My suspicion is that there are more and worse leaks surrounding this one, and they are 'out of sight'.

BP has a history of drilling and killing and getting away with it. It has been more profitable to allow operations to run on the very edge of disaster, often falling into it, than to have kept to a practice of safety, for both their workers and the environment.

The deaths of workers results in payoffs to survivors. The stubborn ones can cost a little more, but eventually, they all give in. It's hard to fight Goliath while grieving, go broke pursuing court.

Their environmental damage is always big, newsy but is always then whittled down to a pittance or a small fine. The end result of the litigation wherein they pay only pennies of what they should pay, typically goes unmentioned by a news media that is more interested in celebrity gossip than in substantive information. A media wherein a minute group of hate mongers who represent no one, is completely generated by Right Wing Lobbying Firms, goes to the expense of 'embedding' their reporters into the 'bus tour' to 'cover' the under attended gatherings.

I would bet that more people are attracted to those gatherings by seeing the big shiny CNN bus show up than they are about the asinine leaders of the non-movement and their nonsensical rants.

The same media geniuses ignore even bigger rallies by real people, who are opposed to the hate mongers. They ignore even bigger rallies that are in support of our current Administration.

These are the people that are bringing us the 'news' on the BP spill. I don't trust them either. They may not be carrying BP ads now, but they have benefited in the past from them. And they expect to, again in the future. It is in their best 'corporate interests' to only promote what BP can live with.

To that end, they are doing all they can to make it the fault of the present government, and highlight complaints about the government, and to not carry the logical questions to their viewers: "How does 30 plus years of de-regulation look to you now?" They act as if it became a brand new world and nothing from the past is at play in this disaster.

They are working just as hard to generate fear and desperation (to make the story more dramatic-- as if it needs that) while questioning the demeanor of the President because he is not 'agitated' or 'emotional' enough.

We don't need emotional staging. We don't need more hysteria. We don't need more desperation. We need cool calm collective thinking. We need to know that people who are capable are in charge. We don't need posturing, posing or dramatic rhetoric.

BP knew that "Top Hat" and "Top Kill" would not work. Yet, they went through this exercise as if it stood a chance. Now, what is floating around scares the crap out of me as much as this oil spill. People are thinking that using a 'small nuke' to blow it up... will solve it.

It is an insane, cartoonish "ACME" solution, ala "Wiley Coyote".

First off, this is underwater. A bomb will more than likely create a crater, not a collapse on itself 'hole'. Nukes will create steam and that will rise to the surface as a plume. See Karoli's blog
for some of the details on that.

Secondly, this is not a vertical well head. This is a horizontal drill. That means that the pipe is just under the floor of the ocean and it travels for miles, both deep and afar.

What we know of the initial explosion is that it was preceded by 'kicks'-- gas escaping into the wellhead. And then 'boom'. Okay, the last part, is in the minds of many, a cartoon image where only the top part of the well head, has damage.

Not in my head. I know that explosions in lines create a 'pressure hammer' also called a 'water hammer' or a 'fluid hammer'. This is essentially, the 'echo' of an explosion. And it ruptures the line in multiple places. This is why I am suspicious that this gusher or 'oil volcano' we can view online, is the only, or even the worst breach.

Now, the idea of a bomb is being circulated by the bought and paid for media, as if it is a viable option. If it fails, and it will, it will effectively do many things that BP wants:

• It will damage the crime scene so that BP can argue and theorize in court and deny how much damage there was initially.
  
• It will create a sense that the government is responsible for the leak that can never be stopped. It will make drilling a relief well impossible. And that will take BP off the hook.
• those other leaks that I suspect are even bigger but not shown? Well, it will be impossible to prove after the bomb blows it all to pieces.
  

BP also is buying time. The minute the leak is stopped, the real criminal investigation and prosecution can and will begin. They need time to buy off people in key positions. They need time to buy off and/or intimidate victims.

Now, back to the bomb. It was floated to me earlier today that it would be a tiny bomb. Maybe only half a kiloton. *facepalm*

Ok, let's say you decide to go with that option. How are you going to get it into a 21" pipe? How big is a 'tiny nuke'? Even if it is the size of a baseball, you have logistical problems.

1. It has to have a protective casing on it. (that would make it way too big to fit down that pipe).
2. How are you going to get it down that pipe? Inject it? With what?
3. It will have to go down several miles, both through the damaged wellhead and the miles of horizontal line before it gets to a vertical drop.
   
4. To do all this, there would be enormous pressure to overcome. The same pressure that is spewing out the oil from the one gusher we are allowed to view. (Oops, I think our baseball just got bigger)
5. It would also have to get through all the crap that has already been sent down that line, including mud and golf balls and whatever else they put in their "Junkshot".
   
6. What if it got stuck part way through? Then what?
   

No, a nuke won't work. It will, however, make this disaster even bigger, more destructive. And it will take BP off the hook.

It is a desperation measure thought of by people who are terrified by what is unfolding before our eyes. Just like 9/11 was used to take away our rights, start a war based on lies, and the ongoing damage from both of those to our nation in the present and the future, desperation is not the way to approach this.

Figure that it is a disaster and it will continue to grow until there is a relief well drilled. That will take months.

Meanwhile, BP should pay for the clean up that works. The use of Elastol, a coagulant, not a dispersant, is the only proven method that works. It is non toxic. The oil can then be recovered and refined. It is solid science and it has been around for decades.

Oil companies don't like to use it because it is green tech. It uses no petrochemical products so, essentially, they cannot make money off it as they use it. It's money out, not money out and then in the side door.

Fishing boats can be easily converted to skimmers. Fisherman can be paid to run them. It would mitigate the damage we see now, create local and regional employment which would relieve a lot of the financial strain on both individuals and states. It would create an economic boon of sorts, while the operation is in process, which will take a few years of clean up.

BP should pay for it. All of it. They have the money. And frankly, I don't give a flying crap about their viability as billionaires in the future. They have done enough damage. We don't need to support them while they are avoiding what works and paying for silence and legislation to protect themselves.

It's time we did what works, and what will also benefit the victims who are being directly affected at this time. Allow those impacted to have a sense of empowerment in that it can be done and they can help protect what they love most. It will give them back the ability to take care of their families and help their waters to heal.

BP loves that people are feeling helpless and desperate. It plays right into their game. People get angry, stock price slumps, but the price of oil goes through the roof. They get richer.

It's time we told them what to do. It's time the media took our side, and quit pandering to the fear and helplessness. It's time.

For even more on Elastol: Here

You can also google or bing "Elastol Coagulent" and get much more information, including the data on skimmers. It is designed to work in all waters, including marshes, and oceans.

Feed It or Starve It

Fear as a Weapon

Sometimes I am slightly synesthetic. I think of it as I do my dyslexia. Dyslexia makes it harder to read, and sometimes, when I am tired or stressed, words make no sense at all; but the upside is that I can solve jumble puzzles, seek and finds, and even cryptographs, faster than most people who are way smarter than I am. The answers just seem to 'show' themselves.

My slightly synesthetic side gives me shape and form to forces, elements in this world, revealing them to me, their symbols and their behaviors, in ways that makes them easier for me to understand.

Under stresses and events of intimidation in my own life, I began to see, recognize fear as something with a shape, form, beginning, and end. An animal complete with gnashing teeth and a fatal flaw. That flaw is the hunger that fear creates that gives it strength and impetus, but which also MUST eat. And when it cannot consume its target, it will consume itself.

I watched as I was growing up, how people were controlled by others. Fear was key to getting people to act against their own best or better interests. Fear was key to keeping people divided by false issues or untruths, to where they would not act, collectively, in their own best interests.

The rules of fear that I have observed, work on an individual one-to-one basis, exactly the same as they work on the collective, the masses.

For the sake of making this simple to understand and to relate to, we will deal with the personal, one-to-one tactics that make fear work, and at the same time, reveals to us exactly what it is and how to defeat it.

• Fear is used to control people. It is used by people who themselves, fear us. If they did not fear us, they would not need to make us fear them, for them to feel safe. They would have no need to control us.
  
  Essentially, one has to know and understand fear and how it affects others. Fear is such an emotional core sense, that to understand it, one has to have it. Like a gun: You can't shoot it if you don't know how. You have to first know it to then use it. Then you can 'aim it'.
  
  Unlike a gun, Fear cannot affect someone who has none of it in them to begin with. It cannot be used by someone that is not afflicted with it and it cannot afflict someone that does not recognize it. Fear has to be owned, sold and bought or it has no effect.
  
  
• Essentially, they have to take their fear, and sell it to us. For this to work, we have to buy their fear. For this to continue working, we have to ignore where it came from: Their fear of us and what we can do with what we know about them.
  
  
• Fear has to be reinforced in order to stay in control. That reinforcement has to come at closer and closer intervals, increasing, essentially, the frequency in the cycles, in order for it to continue to have the desired effect.
  
  
• We can, if we let ourselves, begin to predict the next installment of 'fear reinforcement'. The pattern becomes predictable. Only the extremes that are required are relative unknowns. However, that each cycle will increase in intensity, is predictable.
  

This leaves the person who is employing fear as a weapon or tool, in a quandary. It becomes a chore. It takes more and more energy to do the wrong thing. It is exhausting. Fear is a limited resource because it has to increase how much it draws from the well each visit. Fear requires more fear.

It also requires timing. One cannot go directly to the worst case and most extreme, because they would have to top it at the next interval. How do you top your best? How do you top that? And then top it again?

Fear is limited. As a tool, it is also limiting.

Fear is utilized by those who have no other skills. It is the worst choice of anyone seeking to lead or control. Fear has no allies. It has servants, but they are never trusted completely.

Every time fear loses its desired effect or performs at less than the optimal level, it backfires. The victim of fear might get an insight or feel empowered and put up more resistance. Or lose their fear of the person bullying them, regardless of what they do.

They might even see the flaws in the Fear Plan. They might see that the person employing fear is doing so 'because they are wrong and they know it.' If they were Right, they would not need fear. It would be obvious.

When fear stops working for the ones who employ it, it does not go away. It goes home. Home is where it came from. Home is where it lives. Home is where it eats. And fear, once it is used, becomes hungry. The person who uses it can't control it. Fear begins to consume them.

This is why bullies and despots become unhinged, paranoid, sleepless. The fear they cannot sell to others, consumes them. Even if they have a majority of people cowed, they still need more. They need it all. All is not enough. Fear either grows or dies. Resources are finite. There is never enough.

Had they opted to deal with their fears in the first place, learned more about themselves and rid themselves of their insecurities, they would be immune from ravenous beast. But they chose, instead, to bully others to bend them to their will, all for the one goal of getting their way, when in fact, their way, and getting it, is what ultimately destroys them.

Fear's Worst Fear

Comedians are Fear's worst Fear. To be a comedian of any worth, any success, one has to be really smart. One has to have a true perception of times, places and events that rings true with their audience. Otherwise, no one would laugh.

People who laugh, rethink, relive that which made them laugh. Laughter is shared amongst all Human Beings. We share jokes, tell funny stories, and repeat those that are told to us.

Comedians defeat fear by showing us how stupid it is. Showing us, comically, how ludicrous the tools of it are. Essentially, we laugh at those who try to use fear on us. We begin to think.

People who are laughing are not, in those moments, in fear. Fear and laughter are mutually exclusive and both cannot reside in the same place at the same time. Laughter can come and go, and remain strong. Fear, as we have seen, must be sustained. Any break in the continuity of fear means it has to be, essentially, rebuilt again.

One laugh leads to another. People lose their fear of tyrants. Tyrants and their minions sense their own failure. They turn on one another. They begin to consume one another. Once they start feeding on one another, to survive, to consolidate their power; they become smaller. Smaller becomes weaker. The bellows and roars that used to instill quakes and shudders in their victims, become squeaks and shrieks... and fade from weapon, to ineffective implements, to vague curiosities, as victims stand up, and walk away.

Using the tools, training and skills of non-violence, we overcome those who bully us. We overcome them by not becoming them. By not employing fear or violence, both of which need to be sustained, we build a more lasting ever increasing unity.

But first we have to remember who we are: Especially in those dark moments when we are being beaten down, bullied and intimidated: We are, in ways we may not know or realize, something that they fear. Knowing that, we are already armed with several facts:

• They fear us so much they are now engaging in what will be their downfall.
  
  
  
• Whatever it is, it must be powerful in us. So powerful that they want us to be afraid of who we are and what we can do.
  
  
• One laugh can undo all their efforts and they have to start over.
  
  
• They will have to spend every waking moment, and many a sleepless night, worried that we will see through them. Afraid of us.
  
  
• It is nothing we have done wrong that causes them this fear and panic. It is what is in them that causes this fear and panic.
  
  
• All we have to do is survive or die. If we die, they have to start over on someone else. And they have to fear that they will be found out on this. If we live, we live to tell the story, and their weaknesses, fears, all that they were afraid would be found out-- is revealed.
  

Fear is High Maintenance

The one thing I have seen that bullies fear the most is Truth. Truth is their undoing. It reveals them to us. It reveals them to their minions. It reveals them to themselves. Whatever that is, or means to them, it is something they cannot face. It is the demon they flee while tethered to it.

Fear relies on lies. Lies that create a general mindset that is other than the truth. An alternate reality of sorts. Alternate realities require constant construction and maintenance as the gaps, contradictions and flaws, all bring it down.

Like hoards of plasterers, minions carry the mortar and try to cover the flaws. More and more are created. Mortar is whipped up faster and with less thought, becoming thinner and less supportive, some of it, towards the end, won't even stick, much less dry.

It gets louder, but it fails. The more it fails, the weaker it becomes, the more the minions and their masters become afraid. The more they become afraid, and with fewer people to impose that on, and FEAR being the only skill or tool they have, they begin to turn against one another.

Blame is all they know, so they blame one another. They then cannot reglue those alliances as they see each other as the reason for their failures.

Truth is Low Maintenance

Truth is unchanging. More and more Truth can be revealed, but Truth itself, exists whole. Lies have to be manufactured and the recipes are flawed.

Speaking Truth to Lies, even the really loud lies, even the really bad-tempered lies, is all it takes to keep the lies from sticking, drying, becoming part of the scene as anything except a work of fiction, and of little enduring relevance.

One Truth, spoken over and over again, can undo the lies of history. One Truth, unchanging, more and more revealed, can crumble the lies that have fundamentally created a false history.

In this day and time, we can, by speaking Truth to Lies, prevent a false history from ever solidifying.

We have no enemies. We are all brothers and sisters in this Human Race. We have opposition, and that can be dealt with by laughing at fear merchants, speaking Truth to Lies. They can continue to divide us, and we can continue to appeal to that we all have in common: The Truth. They have it too. They just choose to ignore it.

It is more powerful than all their lies, and it reveals the core of their fears, from which they have chosen to deal, for far too long.

Once we realize we have Truth, we have already won. It just will take time to get there. Meanwhile, they and their minions, their plaster and their noise, are running from the beasts they created and are tethered to, until they let it go.

As long as they are feeding the fear, it will consume them. Fear must feed or starve. That is the way of Fear.

As long as we stand in Truth, we are sustained by Truth.

This is why the opposition is failing. They want us to believe we are failing, but we are winning. We are gaining. Their voices are everywhere, carrying their lies... but the Truth is unchanged, unmoved, unharmed. It is there for us to see, to know and to take sustenance from.

We have done good work. We have told the truth. We have not sold fear to anyone. Those who have it chose to feed it, and it is not our fault they can't let go as it is devouring them.

Their lies starve in our presence.

Religious Abuse

I know many of you will not be happy with this. Many hold "Religion" as the "Sacred Cow" of conversations. Few, if any, want to cut into it. I don't blame you. The process requires real skill to open up closed minds, and is often messy.

Fortunately, I do not have those skills. But I do have some real observations that I feel fully qualified to speak on.

Disclosure: I practice Native Spiritual ways and I am a Pipe Carrier, which is like a Priest in most religions. I doubt that more than a handful of my readers will even know a thimbleful about this Spiritual Practice. I will tell you this: It is a Walking way of life, and I recruit no one. Most would not find it compatible, nor doable. One must be chosen to this path, not recruited.

Like so many, I was outright appalled by one Senator, standing up before the entire Senate and saying that "We must pray for one of them to not make it.." He calls himself a devout Christian. Yet he prays against the Good Will and Safety of a colleague.

To what end? To deny the passage of a bill that would provide Health Care to a sick and sorry nation, wherein more than 45K die every year for lack of access. Many more times that suffer permanent damage and financial ruin for the lack of access to adequate health care.

That so many who call themselves Christians work so diligently to deny a basic human right of decent care to their fellow citizens, is appalling. Worse, few if any, of their 'spiritual leaders' denounce this horrid, cruel, selfish behavior. Worse, many are promoting these same mindset.

Church Leaders, especially those most cult-like in C Street, are praying for not only Health Care to fail, leaving millions to die in the coming decades, but also praying for the President of The United States to die a horrible death and soon.

Yet, they are regarded with respect and considered "Men of God". Clearly, their God is the Corporate God and not the God of the People. Do these 'Men of God' think that Jesus would be pleased to see their work?

I question now, and here, if in fact they believe in Jesus or the God to which they pray. I question it because all their actions and the aim of their prayers is towards the undoing of the common good, and the death and demise of those who try to bring it to us.

If they really believed in God, or Jesus, they would be working towards that which provides the most healing, both physical and spiritual, in this nation. Not praying and moving towards all that denies us both.

I have a lot of Atheists in my stream on Twitter. They are much kinder, more compassionate towards their fellow man than are these high and might Right Wing Christian Cultists. They hold themselves personally accountable for their actions. They do not blame the Devil, nor do they seek forgiveness or Papal Indulgences for their actions.

What has it come to when Atheists have more care and compassion for their fellow man than do the Christians who claim to follow the teachings of Christ?

To be fair, I do have many good Christians in that stream as well. In my personal life I have good friends who are active in their churches, and genuine practitioners of various faiths: Muslim, Anglican, Sufi, Hindu, Shinto and Buddhists. There are even a Wiccan or two in there.

All are equally appalled at the behaviors emanating from the Christian Extremists. The lies and the fear mongering, the outright terrorizing of anyone that tries to speak truth to ignorance, has been one of the more shameful displays of our Citizens behaviors. Thanks to You Tube, everyone in every nation has had a chance to view how ignorant, loud, aggressive and just plain mean-spirited so many of our politicians and their tea bag constituents can be.

Thanks to the shoot-from-the-hip and don't think about it mentality of John McCain, Sarah Palin has been elevated to the International Stage as our national Freak Show goes on the road. She proudly displays her ignorance, her lies and her fear mongering, as the main features of her Strong Christian Faith.

Lies are so commonly used to try and rewrite history, or twist one man's words to make them something they were not. Outright lies are now considered useful common tools for the Right Wing. "Whatever it takes" seems to be the motto.

They care nothing for Nation. They care nothing for Truth. They care only for power. What God would they pray to?

Our nation, among the strongest in the world, considered a leader in the world, is demonstrating a zealous, religious extremism that is appalling to all who believe in God, and to those who do not.

It creates the appearance of Insanity, which creates mistrust about our ability to deal reasonably or fairly in world events. Other nations look at our nation and see religious leaders praying for the cruelest of deaths to afflict our president... hear our highest paid talk show hosts calling for him to fail and for everyone to do what they can to make him fail... and they allude to the need for violence... And they hear from Al Qaeda the same thing. Do they not wonder? Do we all not wonder whose side the Christian Extremists are on?

Can they not see that they are in lock step with the rantings of Osama Bin Laden and the others?

Or do they not care?

Our previous Vice Prez, Cheney, has been praying for another 9/11 attack. He does so, and so do many who follow him, so that our Nation will once again, be buckled by shock and grief, despair and his party can once again, step to the helm and steer us into oblivion, while the Religious Right prays and praises them.

There is madness out there. It is all around us. But we are more than they are. We have not forgotten who we are. There are more of us than there are of them. We can bring health and healing to this nation. They can grow tired of their failed lies and fear-mongering.

For Extremists, Religion is the mask that hides the darkest of deeds. It is the mask worn by those who seek refuge from their own behaviors.

For those of different faiths, who truly believe in their ways, compassion, generosity and healing are a walking way of life.

For those of Atheistic ways: Personal Accountability, compassion for others, and generosity are a walking way of life.

For those who condemn others who will not wear religion as a mask... I must tell you that the God you claim to believe, sees you. The mask will not protect you.

And for those who would condemn Atheists as "Godless" may I remind you, That is NOT your judgment to make.

It is up to each of us, for whatever we claim, to work on our own selves. It is not our job to condemn our brothers and sisters. It is not our job to recruit them.

No God, no "Powerful" God, would require our belief to exist. Nor would any Powerful God require us to fight one another. No God would require that we recruit anyone. Only the churches seeking power, require that.

It is our job to help one another. The one clear thing to all of us is that we are many in number, and there must be a reason for that. Obviously, we are not meant to do anything in this life, without one another being affected by it.

If you think you have found religion, and it requires that you abuse others, neglect others, tell lies.. if that is what you have found, you have my profound pity. For, all that you do, in the name of your God or your Religion is what you are held accountable for in this and any other world.

Take the Wheel Away From Crazy

Here is the theory on how insurance is supposed to work: We all pay money in to a pool. Since we don't all need care at the same time, the pool stays fairly constant. When we do need it, we need way more than we could afford without it. Insurance steps in and pays the bills from the pool.

That is how they have sold us insurance on everything from our cars to our pets to our lives and our health, for decades. We all pay in. Essentially, we are helping to pay for others when they need it, and others are paying for us when we need it.

The way insurance works now, is different. The insurance companies take our money, raise our rates at will. When we need the product, they make us fight them to get it. Even then, they will deny us access to the very thing we have been paying for all these years.

People are paying 10-25% or more, of their income, for 'health insurance'. Add to that premium, the deductibles, co-pays and the cost goes up substantially. People who are unemployed or lose their jobs can continue to access insurance at exorbitant rates. Anywhere from 80-120% or more, of their Unemployment Benefits check.

The laws governing and regulating business have been thrown out the window so that Insurance companies could grow bigger, play dirtier, give less and make higher profits.

The Public Option would change all that.

• We would not be denied Insurance.
• We would have substantially less cash outgo, and in some cases, have subsidies to pay for it.
• We would only have to worry about getting better, not about going bankrupt, dying and leaving our families with nothing but bills.
  
• We could rely on receiving good preventative care, and we could, if needed, get the best possible care for terminal diseases.
  
• It would cost employers a fraction of what it costs them now. that translates into more money into the consumer economy.
• Hospitals would be better, more efficiently run because they would have more predictable workloads. As it stands now, the ER fills up with everything from infected hangnails, heart attacks and deadly flu viruses. Being able to see a doctor by appointment for non-emergency events would free up our waiting rooms, and put less stress on our medical personnel and the facilities.
  
• Babies would be born healthier because their mothers could get prenatal care.
  
• Babies born with defects could be cared for without the family going bankrupt. There would be more babies born.
  

But the crazies are being whipped up to oppose all this. As if they have good health insurance now? They don't! They are at the whim of the Insurance companies and their 2,000 page lists of 'reasons' to deny coverage. Everything from teenage acne to a broken toe in childhood.

Single Payer would be a boon to every man, woman and child in the country. Every business, large and small, would benefit and make higher profits if they didn't have to offer such high cost benefits as "Health Insurance" with their ever increasing premiums.

The only business that would "Suffer" if you can call it that, are the Insurance Companies that have been allowed to run wild through our economy, with no rules, no leashes, and no conscience. They would have to 'settle' for profits in the hundreds of millions instead of the hundreds of billions.

Opening up Medicare, a system that is already in place and works well, would be the best possible of all worlds. It would bring more money into Medicare, improve the efficiency of Medicare and we would not need to establish yet a whole 'nother' bureaucracy to run Health Care.

What Grampa McCain and the other bought and paid for by the Insurance Companies, Politicians are saying to us, in their outright lies and misrepresentations is this:

"You are meat. You are not human. You live to serve the Insurance Companies profits. You are not entitled to good care at a reasonable cost. You are too stupid to know what is best for you and you will fight this until the Insurance Companies Win."

He knows that the 'cost cuts' to Medicare that are proposed are cutting the waste and abuse that exists in Medicare. Waste and abuse that is, much of it, profitable to the Insurance companies that sell "supplemental" insurance to seniors, and then take over their Medicare payments, and then charge extra for the very things that Medicare, by itself, would cover!

He, Grassley, and the rest of them KNOW this would be the very best thing for the economy, for our overall health, and it would cut the debt.

They are not arguing to improve this bill and make it better. They are trying to kill this bill so that they can continue to get funds from the big boys that done bought them already.

It is estimated that 40-45 thousand people a year, die for lack of Health Insurance. They have it, but it is taken away when they need it. Or, they can't afford the premiums.

What is not in the statistics is how many people go bankrupt every year because of medical costs. How many people have permanent damage or disabilities related to not being able to get treatable injuries or illnesses taken care of.

I am guessing that that number is much, much higher.

What we do know is this: The Insurance Companies give themselves billions in bonuses every year. Some of their board members get as much or more, than $1billion every year.

Who do you think is paying for that?

So, for those who say they don't want to pay for someone else's medical bills, I ask this: Do you have insurance now? If so, then when you get sick, someone else is paying for YOUR bills. If you are well, you are already paying for someone else's bills--- and those obscene bonuses.

If you don't have insurance and you are opposed to Public Option/Single Payer, then you are either wealthy enough to cover any medical expense that comes your way, or you are willing to suffer and die, or watch members of your family suffer and die, for lack of it. How far will your principles carry you?

One of the ways Societies are judged is in how they take care of their sick and their disabled.

Look around.

By even entertaining the obscene lies in opposition to major, substantial Health Care Reform, we are allowing the craziest, the stupidest and the most mean-spirited, to drive us over the financial cliff.

It is time to take the wheel away from crazy, and get us to a safer place.

Circus of the Absurd

It's not news. They call it news, but it is not news. It has not been "News" for a very long time.

I remember what News was. It was delivered by a serious journalist, with credentials, a resume of journalism, and an ability to seek out, investigate, and report the findings to the public. They were called "Reporters" at first. Later, they were called "Anchors". (The art of Fact Checking began to slip away as Reporters morphed into "News Readers" and Anchors into "Hosts"... like game shows.)

They did not render extreme points of view on a topic, subject or story. They did not seek out 'opinions', they hunted down facts like cats at a gopher hole, not afraid to wait, dig, gather and bring us the result. Getting it right was more important than getting it first.

They are all gone now. Not one network has any remnant of what News was. They still call it News. They still deliver it as if it is relevant, but it is not even informative. It is Fact Free, junk sourced, spliced together in a shallow grave of ethical standards, and it stinks.

But we keep tuning in. We keep thinking that we are watching, listening to "The News", delivered mostly by models who read scripted 'chatterful' blurbs, skimming only the surface of anything relevant, not wasting time on "in-depth", ignoring logical follow-up. The research in some cases, is nil. It is a circus of fabrications, strung together, regurgitated, and then presented as "the Issue" or "The Controversy".

To give this Fact Free fluff and stuff the air of importance, every show seems to cater to the WWE formula of absurdity to 'rivet' attention on the junk food being stuffed down our gullets. They impanel 'discussion groups', throw out statements that are premised on absurdities or outright falsehoods, and intercept any civility or decency with rudeness, greater falsehoods and encourage both sides to dig in on the most extreme angles. Directors shouting in their earpieces to "Raise it up a notch!" "Don't let him get away with that!"

The audience becomes witness to one car wreck after another, with nothing being resolved or discussed. We are left with the bad taste of being tricked, yet again, into watching a death match between extremes.

At the end of the show, we decide who "won" based on sound bytes, not on substance. We realize that we are ever more divided because, instead of coming to a reasoned conclusion on matters that affect us all, we have had inflicted on us, greater insult to our intelligence, our opinions, our sense of civility. They even ask us to "vote". Even those choices are extreme. But it gives some viewers a false sense of having a say in what is being said. Insanity in a mirror maze of illogical dialogue.

Worse, this media garbage goes out to the world. Other nations watch our behaviors, marvel at our ignorance, are stunned at how badly we treat one another. And we wonder why our allies have second thoughts about supporting us on issues and in events that are critical to our survival, progress or standing in the world?

We present ourselves as raving lunatics, or as people who take sport in taking one another down, with no consideration for what is true and what is just outright lies. Our sense of 'balance' has been skewed to only accept extreme opposites rather than factually reasoned studies, investigations, discourse. Middle ground is the abandoned territory, forgotten by Pilgrims who became distracted by the circus.

Meanwhile, we as a nation remain uninformed, or at best misinformed.

We as a nation cannot see ourselves resolving issues. We can't even envision speaking to one another to save our country. Shouting has become the weapon to silence those who would point out a better path. What treasures await for us to find them in the common ground of our best interests?

We look to media "News" to give us information, but they give us garbage. We give them our viewership and their masters rake in advertising dollars. It's not about us, it's not about Truth, it's not about Facts. It's about ratings.

As long as they get the ratings, as long as we keep showing up, tuning in, expecting it will be more substantial this time, as long as we keep turning on the TV, nothing will change.

CNN bills itself as News. They even have a handful of quality reporters. But they put their prime time programs into scripted rancor, divisive grudge matches and whipped with outright fictional statements, sourced through the most specious of outlets.

Lou Dobbs is gone. They allowed him an on air presence to spew his racist, fact-free "discussions" for too long. He signed off by ignoring his blatant abuse of the platform. He made it sound as if some great conspiracy was afoot to silence him as he toiled to bring us the most inflammatory of insanity, the Birther Conspiracy. He did his best to burn down the house that had kept him for too long. I suspect he took a dump in his dressing room, in case someone would miss his message of contempt.

He catered to and brought an audience to CNN that consisted of the most racist, least educated, most unstable viewers, who saw in him, a champion for their Trailer Trash mentality. CNN allowed this because it brought viewers, which increased their revenues.

They did not fire Lou Dobbs because they suddenly awakened to the fact that he was divisive, lying, fanning the flames of racism. They fired him because they fell to last place. People, in protest, or out of common sense, not only quit watching Dobbs' spot, they quit watching CNN -- period. It was a business decision, not a moral one.

Wolfe Blitzer has now taken over that vacated spot. His awkward attempts to keep stirring the insanity and the rancor and the prevent the discussions from becoming 'enlightening' or for either side to use quality researched facts to inform the public or defeat the extremist bullying, belies the true nature of what is, not just CNN, but all "News" programs these days: Circuses of the Absurd.

MSNBC and other networks employ the same tactics. They don't bill themselves as anything but commentary, but to keep with the extremist mentality, they put on blatant racists such as Pat Buchannan, just to make sure that the discourse doesn't stray too far from the fireworks that 'gets people's attention' and 'makes em mad' and of course, leaves us worse off, less informed, than before the panel discussion was inflicted on us.

An outraged viewership consumes more blindly, products sponsored. A thoughtful, contemplative audience is also less prone to impulse buying. Worse, they can, with awareness and facts, challenge many of the practices that make Corporate Sponsors, and Corporations that own media--- nervous. Ergo: outrage creates purchases; reasoned thinking creates potential opposition in the market place.

Both CNN and MSNBC throw us crumbs of quality. A show here or there, of merit and quality. They do that to tease us into knowing that they are capable of more and better, but that they won't give us more of the better.

If we want more, we have to wade and cut through swamps of scripted chatter, cage match panels of extremists pitted against one another based on the premises of questions or challenges based on the sleaziest fictional point/counterpoints. Come for the substance, leave because of the insanity. It's Lucy and the Football, over and over again.

It's not news anymore. It's "Opinion Wars".

We don't ever get to hear 'other educated points of view.' We have extremist propaganda hurled at us by those who don't care how much damage has been done to the facts, the psyche of the nation as a whole, or to our image to our own nation and other nations with whom we share this world. They care nothing for the damage done to the future, the children and grandchildren not yet born.

Gatekeepers

Being informed makes one more empowered and makes many, a force to be reckoned with. Being uninformed or misinformed creates a sense of fear, panic and an army of outraged willing to stampede in any direction pointed by incompetent regimes or administrations; unable to know both what is wrong nor how to fix it. It is the guarantee of Power used by every nation and by every Corporate Giant, to manipulate the population into a deeper and deeper enslavement.

It is to the benefit of oppressive governments and powerful corporations everywhere to combine their powers and essentially, be the Gatekeepers of information. Gatekeepers can block good, truthful, fact based information from getting out. Conversely, they can dispense erroneous data, manufacture and fabricate at will, to keep the population not only isolated from the rest of the world, but from listening to or trusting one another.

Communication is key to any organism functioning, thriving or withering and dying. By making people unable to communicate with one another, we effectively become disunited and less able to function cohesively in a time of crisis.

Weapon of Mass Distraction

Using only extreme points of view has only one purpose: Excitement. Like a dog fight. Nothing but blood in the ring at the end of the battle. We cheer for our dog to win. We forget that it's not supposed to be a dog fight. No one is supposed to "win". We are supposed to be informed. We are supposed to find common ground with one another and ways to overcome the damage inflicted on our nation over a generation of deregulation, melt down and allowing a Frat Boy mentality with a cowboy swagger, to steer us into needless wars.

We keep feeling that we are in this arena, and the beasts are released to savage our points of view, and we engage in battle mode and lose sight of the fact that we should not be trying to "win"--we should be, and we really need to be, as a nation, focused on how we can heal from the damages already inflicted.

Media should be an avenue by which we find our common ground, our healing. But it is not. It could be so much more, but it is not. Rather, for the sake of both ratings and keeping us disempowered, it is the greatest weapon in the Mass Distraction arsenal.

We, the greatest nation on earth, were stampeded by the most incompetent of administrations into being responsible for the slaughter innocents.

It has left us tangled in a destabilized region of the world, creating even more extremism, contemplating more soldiers in an endless war, or to withdraw and allow to happen, that which was set in motion when the war started, and then left to languish as more opportunities for destruction came into view. Do we embrace the inevitable? Or do we throw more blood and treasure into the hole of our creation?

Our extremist politicians failed to prevent us from being attacked. They use their bumbling in the Middle East, to scare us into fighting one another, in death matches of facts and fiction, hosted by media that scripts discussions to be either shouting matches between lunatics, or mindless chatter between airhead hosts.

We have become a Civil War mentality. Media is doing nothing to bring us to reason, nor to understanding or to coming together, and everything to divide us, for the sake of ratings.

People are less educated, and more misinformed in our nation than at any time in our history.

That leaves us vulnerable to exploitation on a level never before possible.

The media does not have our best interests at heart. I would dare say, they don't even have our best interests, as a nation, on their radar. Most are owned and controlled by corporations that frankly, make a whole lot more money if we don't wise up to what they are doing to make it worse.

Their greatest fear is that we, the greater thinking part of us, would come together and accomplish great things, and become a nation of free-thinking, tolerant people who do not judge or fear others based on skin color, religion, or choice of life partner. We would be unbreakable, unscareable, indivisible, if that were to happen. It would be harder to exploit us by group, ethnicity, economic strata. Government would work for US, and not for the corporate masters who demand we be enslaved, impoverished, ignorant and unhealthy.

Our Power

We need to remember that we have the power. Media may work to distract us, but it cannot work without us. Instead of being willing, helpless accomplices to our own detriment, we can demand from them, more and better. We can make it so that those who run the media, in order to survive as a corporate entity, can only do so if we are pleased with them adhering to a standard of civility, investigation, research, and quality of information.

They can work to earn us, or they can risk losing us.
Government will do what the people allow them to get away with; or they will do what the people deem is in our general best interests. They will be responsive to us if we stay informed and united.

Government and Corporations fear that we will become united. That would mean that our Tax dollars go to helping our people, not as payoffs to billionaires who belong to their clubs, and who made their fortunes by exploiting our resources and then polluting our air, putrefying our waters and poisoning our arable lands.

Corporations will have to behave in a responsible way. Welfare will be for citizens who need it, not for Corporations who give billion dollar bonuses to their executives. Money is a resource. We can become Gatekeepers of that resource if we become informed.

There is so much we can do if we become informed. To become informed, we are going to have to find a way to listen to one another. We can't do that if we engage our energies and our efforts to match the force of the willfully ignorant and those whose mission in this world is to keep us divided. We can step aside and let them fight the fog while we carry on, building and repairing.

They will destroy themselves if there is no common enemy for them to engage. They have already begun to cannibalize themselves as a natural part of their process. The more we engage them directly, the more we delay their inevitable demise as a force or even a movement.

By engaging on the level where their ignorance is being revealed, without directly engaging them as that ignorance, they lose status in their peer group. In fact, the group is forced to countenance their ideas as making them vulnerable or subject to ridicule. They cannot martyr themselves, nor can they be Champions. They become part of the mass of wrong thinking and cannot earn our individual attention. They have to seek our our words to know how we responded. We no longer deliver to their door. They have to work for it. Drain their energy.

Since the greater the ignorance, (and their endeavor is solely aimed at elevating Ignorance and Fear) the more fragile the ego, Ego will attempt to gain status. If it cannot gain status by direct person-to-person engagement and remains secondary to "Ideas" or "Ideals" , it will seek standing amongst its peers. The peers are also Ego seeking, and they will then battle amongst themselves.

Meanwhile, we have been hard at work, working towards what we know needs to be done in this Country, in order to heal, repair and rebuild. By the time the opposition runs out of steam and they will because they will have exhausted it fighting amongst themselves, we will be so far ahead of them, we won't even hear their whimpers. However, each time we elevate them to Person of Importance status by engaging them by name, rather than by flawed idealism and percussive jingoism, they become heroic or at least 'noticed' by their peers, even for that brief time.

Essentially, they seek us out to engage personally, not for sharing ideas, but rather, to be the name of the thorn in our side--big enough to bother us, disturb our calm and create a cage match, event to raise their profile among their peers. They need US to do that for them. We can choose to respond to the ideas, the words, without responding to the person directly, and without elevating that person, for that precious 15 min of fame.

If they want to engage, they will have to find a way to do it that is civil, respectful or they will find they are left out of the greater functioning system, and less able to have an effect/impact on how the future is shaped.

I'm on Twitter. @catawu . I find that I often fall into the sport of engaging in cage matches with extremists who troll social media for the sole purpose of creating a presence that bends the arc of information away from truth, away from progress, away from healing, towards fictional realms of fear and ignorance.

I do that because I am a scrappy person by nature. It's in my make up to be in-your-face against liars, racists and bullies. I get my buttons pushed because I allow my buttons to be pushed. I engage because I don't want to just leave that crap out there...

But I have been rethinking my approach lately. We have only so much energy and so much time. If I waste it in these worthless cage matches, or trying to inform and enlighten those whose intention is to create and support false doctrines, it leaves me with less energy and time to devote to real discussions with real people who are working to make it better. Fix and repair what is left of our nation. Pass Health Care so that I, my friends and millions I will never meet or know, will not be financially gutted before they die from lack of health care.

@Karoli had an excellent posting on her blog, Drums and Whistles, about disengaging from the bloodsport aspects of social media. http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ "The Left Doth Protest Too Much" and it made real sense to me.

Another Tweeter, @cynthiaboaz has a more Ghandiesque approach to social media and engaging the attackers. She makes real sense in her approach.

I came to realize that we all have something really important to bring to the discussion. We all have different styles. We all have different ideas. What we have in common is a burning desire to overcome the tyranny of Corporate induced "Information Soup" that offers very little substance, consumes our attention, and detours us away from our common ground, and any attempt to reach it and help ourselves by helping one another.

We have different parts of the Big Picture. We all bring something. We have different styles and we can learn from one another.

Some of us will engage in cage matches, some of us will encourage boycotts of programs or hosts that are the most extreme, some of us will gently but firmly, mirror to the attacker, what they are doing.

What we need to do, each in our own way, is to support one another's efforts where we see the value, even if we are not using the same approach.

When we unite and stick together on the key points of issues that are important to us, corporations and our government, is forced to concede to us, that which is ours, has been ours all along: The Right to choose to not have inflicted upon us, propaganda, and manufactured divisiveness.

We can choose to not accept, either by ignorance or habit, that which they project into the media, to steer us into greater divisiveness. We can turn it off. We can turn off the "news" that is not news. We can turn off the impulse to engage when red meat is thrown into our territory. We can choose to ignore them completely. That will drain their strength, and they will turn in a direction where they think they can have an impact, or they will fade away.

We can offer them nothing. Not even our engaged opposition to their outrageous, inflammatory statements. We can spend that time and energy, working with those who are working to help us and to repair this nation.

I still have the urge to take a swing at them. It's in my make up. But I have been watching and learning from others, and you will find that I am disengaging from them more than I am engaging them. I will still pursue politicians and make them aware that I am aware. I might occasionally go after an asshat that has a public stream, where I can expose their lies and motives and hypocrisy.... but most of my time will be spent behind the scenes, working to support those who are doing the hard work, nose to the grindstone, and who could use a hand from time to time.

I will still enjoy my friends ravaging the ignorant inflammatory, with the ease and alacrity of swatting a fly. I will still support my friends whose steely courage in demanding answers, truth and responses, makes them superstars in my book.

I will do what I do best in the way that I do it better than most. I will be a helper, a supporter, and will add value where I have value to add. I will more actively seek out those who are doing the nuts and bolts constructive repairs and see where I can add to it and help out.

There will still be wars raging, attacks flying, and hysterical repertoire. I will still High Five my battle weary compatriots, and reach to uplift those who have been battered and bruised. There will still be anger, lies and stunning ignorance... but I will endeavor to ignore it and continue on with my work, knowing that my energies and time in this world are finite resources.

I think most of us like to go to the circus. It's entertaining. But few if any of us, really want to live there. We just need to wake up and realize that we can leave, anytime. And when the show is on rerun loops every 12 minutes, as many "News" networks are, we should just realize that it is not going to change, get any better, unless we leave and come back later--maybe. Maybe not come back at all.


*I mention CNN & MSNBC because they can do better. FOX has a stated goal of destroying our nation by destroying our President, by lying and grossly misrepresenting issues. Anyone that watches FOX is beyond my ability to reason or to understand.

Insurance as Oxymoron

Insurance doesn't mean you get what you pay for. There is no insurance in Insurance unless you own the Insurance Company.

Maybe Insurance Companies are in the wrong business?

Watching the way insurance companies conduct their business, and what they are doing now, makes me wonder about what the term "Insurance" has come to mean. With all the denials of legitimate claims, and of throwing people out of the plan if they get sick or injured, and the unregulated raising of premiums to astronomical rates, it would seem that the term "Insurance Company" means that only the Insurance Company will get any money.

They have declining enrollment and manage to increase their profits, and bonuses in what would seem to be a contrary logic.

We are a captive market. The insurance companies are unregulated. Any regulations we manage to get onto them, their lobbyists will buy back before dark tonight. They cannot be trusted. People suffer and die because of their tactics. Their profits are solely blood money.

Now they fight us by fear mongering, and their goal is to genuinely terrify people into opposing, literally, the one thing that can save us all. They are spending more than a million dollars a day to set us apart from our own best interests.

It's like a ship taking on water. People are frantically bailing to save us all, while others are attacking them, and others are jabbing more holes in the hull saying "water should be allowed to seek it's own level!" That somehow we are going against the very laws of nature by trying to get us all to a healthy and safe shore in the future.

The opposition is frantic, ignorant and in some cases, just plain crazy.

They claim that they cannot survive if Health Care passes. Bookstores survived libraries, FEDEX and UPS, etc, survive the Government run mail delivery services.

But Insurance companies, I believe, mean it when they say they cannot survive government health care. They have managed to carve out a majority of Medicare benefits for themselves in the guise of "Supplemental" insurance for seniors, which becomes HMO insurance and Seniors then have to fight tightwad corporate types for the basic care and medications they need, and pay more and more out of pocket expenses themselves. They choose between medication and food. Health care and rent. So much for the golden years.

With the new legislation, consumers would have a choice. There would no longer be the captive economy and the desperate families.

Insurance companies don't want you if you are sick, ever were sick, ever will become injured or sick. That cuts into their bottom line, their big bonuses. What is amazing about this whole riot of violence and racism which are being injected into the debate by astroturf pros working for the Insurance Companies, is that they don't want those whom they won't accept, to have ANY kind of insurance.

Why? Because they need to have examples out there, everyone knows a horror story of bankruptcy or death due to lack of care, they need to have that sword dangling over the heads of the fearful to keep them in the fold, paying the increasing premiums, escalating deductibles, and who can be and are, dumped without notice, when they might actually need or use INSURANCE.

Apparently, Insurance companies are in the "give us your money" business. They cannot efficiently, effectively nor even compassionately provide service or care to customers.

Maybe it is time for the Health Insurance Companies that cannot provide services, coverage and care, to get out of the Health Insurance business and go into something else. Something that gives them billions of dollars, is unregulated, and that people cannot opt out of, and only a select few can opt into.

Health insurance, so far, seems to be the only thing that gives them what they crave and what they expect.

Meanwhile, the government, with our money, can provide for us, decent health care, and our thoughts can turn to other things and our energies spent on other endeavors, once the fear of bankruptcy or death because of health care is removed from the table.

Once we no longer have to fear that our child will not get medical help when needed, or that we would have to choose between insurance and food, insurance and medication, insurance and rent---we might be able to start moving ahead in this world.

Once we get real health care reform, you can bet the Insurance companies will come bearing gifts. Offering low-cost alternatives, and a PR endeavor that will dazzle even those of us who think we know what to expect. Behind the scenes, their lobbyists will be buying our representatives in government. They will try to weedle their way into it the way they have into Medicare, and begin overcharging on the new one the way they have been the Medicare system (14% is the conservative estimate on the over-cost).

Big corporations get wealthy by taking the resources of our country for their own private profit: Oil, water, timber, minerals... and now our health, life and death, under threat of bankruptcy, or the loss of a loved on, is the biggest target for corporate takeover.

It is up to us to save ourselves, and our nation, from the corporate greed that has, on every level, gotten wealthy at our expense.

"If you have your health," so they say, "You have everything". Don't let them continue to take that from us. Time for us to become a healthier, stronger nation. A lot of work to be done.

Whimpering Dogs

Start on the Blue Dogs. You'll recognize them easily enough. They have control over the finance committees on this thing. Their leashes are firmly in the hands of Insurance Lobbyists. They have a big problem seeing the needs of the people over the big dollars given to them by the Insurance Lobbyists.

Blue Dogs would love to see you, your children, die before they would allow you to have access to affordable, reasonable, decent healthcare. How do I know? Because it is happening everyday. They know it, and they ignore it. They are getting their share of blood money.

Endless Sacrifice

Religion as Power

These are strange times indeed.

The world is both coming unglued as nations go to war with other nations and the wars within themselves.

Iran’s Theocracy is coming unhinged. The once revered and unquestioned Mullahs, who gained more and more power by playing on the religious fears of the people, while warping the doctrines of Mohammed, are now revealed as shallow, greedy, abusive, monsters whose only ambition is to have all power unto them, and to them only.

Politicians to them, are mere puppets, a show for the people, to make them believe they have any control over their lives, or a say in how their nation is governed. Women are treated as breeders, with no voice and no rights, subjected to horrors of abuse, rape and murder at the whim of the all powerful male dominated culture.

The Mullahs have been revealed in Iran as frauds and hypocrites. They go against the teachings of their holy books and violate every tenant to grab and hold power, and the illusions of piety, and they designate themselves as the Chosen, the Holy Men.

They lie, they cheat, they torture, rape, murder, their own people in their name for God. They perform desecrations and call themselves “holy”. They are revealed and the people are in revolt. They are seen through and the people, with non-violence, stand up to them and with courage and sacrifice, they stand up against what they know is wrong.

They have no weapons. They have only their lives. They defy what is evil and which has overpowered them for so long. Theirs is an endless sacrifice.

Meanwhile, corrupt nations support the corrupt Iranian leadership. China, Russia, North Korea, all who want the oil, applaud the barbaric and cheer on the heathens masquerading as holy men.

Iran claims to be the voice of Moslem People the world over. Yet, they ignore the fate of Uighurs, who are attacked for their Moslem faith in nations such as China.

Clearly, this is not about any God by any name other than Oil, Power, Money.

Parallel Politics

The Founding Fathers of the United States foresaw the downfall of our nation and what could prevent it. They set in place the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. They knew that for our nation to endure, we must have a clear separation between Church and State.

Religious Zealots, such as we have seen in Iran, are what brings down a system that relies all or in part, on the participation and agreement of Religious Leaders.

Political Power and Religious Power, if combined, rob the citizens of their freedoms to choose their religions, or to choose not to follow any religion. If we are required to follow any religious tenet as a qualification for to enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship, we start down a road that leads our nation and its politics, into the darkest corruptions of power.

Further, once Religion becomes the key, the driving force behind politics and the motives of politicians, a war within begins. Which religion? Which club do you have to belong to in order to participate in your own government? Will Catholics go to war with Lutherans? Will Baptists battle the Nazarenes? Will Christians make other religions ‘lesser religions’? And will they, like the Mullahs, battle it out amongst themselves, at our expense, for the most powerful seat in the land?

As religious demagogues worm their way into our political discussions, a place where they have no right to be, are we not inching our way towards a Theocratic Ruled Nation?

We have seen the rule of “Separation between Church and State” eroded more and more each election. We have seen our laws warped and twisted to accommodate the religious interests at the cost of our health, our economy and our sense of security.

We are told, and too many are conditioned, to just believe without question, follow without asking, the leadership of those who pretend to be men of Religion, but who are in fact, only men of Politics and Power.

Now, it is time for us all to take a good look at Iran, and how it got that way. How we, the USA, with all our Power, overthrew their democracy and installed the Shah, who used torture and abuses to control the people. We protected him, and he gave us all the oil we wanted.

It was only a matter of time before the people became intolerant and overthrew our puppet. They were lead by a powerful force, a religious zeal that made them unstoppable. In their desire to overthrow the corrupt, and to have their freedom of religion returned to them, they installed a powerful religious zealot, who oppressed them for reasons of his own. They went from a Democracy, to an Autocracy, to a Theocracy … and now they want Democracy. They want not just freedom, but equality.

Meanwhile, our nation, born as a Democracy, inches its way into a theocracy.

A book we all must read to understand how people are turning religion into power, and justifying crimes against Humanity, in the name of Power, and how our government is being subverted into a Theocracy, is “THE FAMILY” , by Jeff Sharlet.

It calls itself a Church, but it is a cult. They twist the meanings of right and wrong into something appalling. They justify every infidelity, every crime, even the rape of children as okay, because they consider themselves “chosen by God” and given “power” by God and therefore they can do no wrong, and nothing they do can be considered wrong.

It is quite possibly the most dangerous cult in our history. It targets all the seats of power, and seeks to control all the levers of power. Their ambition does not stop at our borders. They seek to conquer the world using our blood and treasure.

They extol the virtues of Hitler, Pol Pot, Suharto and every villain we have ever despised, as people who were "chosen for power by God" and that their tactics were masterful. They seek to emulate the most evil and their most vile ways. This is no 'Church' my friends. This is a cult blatantly seeking absolute power.

They seek to divide marriages, families and all that is loved in this world. They seek to displace the love of family, and of country, with the worship of their Leader and his words, regardless of how much they contradict scripture, common sense, or even what he himself has just said, shall be above question.

Anytime you are taught to obey without question, any mortal, you are following a madman. And yet, for the past 70 years, some very influential politicians have been doing just that. Their allegiance to their country falls far from oath to obey their leader, David Coe. Their marriage, their family, all without value in the eyes of their cult. No wonder so many who were climbing the ladder of power have fallen on the bonfires of infidelity. To them, they were doing no wrong. They could do no wrong. They were the Chosen.

They say they are building a kingdom so that Christ can return. Judging from what I have seen of their constructions, the last thing they would want to see is Christ walking around in the corruption and the destruction they have created.

I firmly believe that all religious cults, or any cult that prays on a religious belief, have at their mast, a non-believer, the biggest hypocrite of all. A true believer would know that force, intimidation and hypocrisy are wrong.

A true believer would know that committing crimes, infidelity, murder and wars are not pleasing to the God they pretend to worship.

But a hypocrite knows how to manipulate the undereducated, the weak-minded, the fearful, and make them an army. It is that army that they are building, within the marbled and gilded halls of our government, that will lead us all into the downfall the Founding Fathers warned us against.

They attempt to change history, creating a false beginning and purpose of our nation. They want to teach what they preach, and make fiction hold sway over the truth. They want to say that our nation was founded on Religious principals. It was not. Our nation was founded as a trading outpost for an empire that competed with other empires for the resources of the known world.

We fought to keep those resources as our own. We stole the lands and the resources from the Indians who had facilitated both our survival in this new land, and our success in the wars against other nations. We thanked them with broken treaties, abuses, and false history.

That fiction has weakened us. Now, to create a fiction that we were Chosen ones, and that we have done no wrong, leaves us only to follow those who call themselves “the Chosen”, and their warped hypocrisy, into a cauldron of our own destruction.

Read the book. I am. Learn what we must do to save our Democracy from those who would twist it into a Theocracy. Do it now, before we are dying in the streets, chased by thugs who have the power of our government telling them it is okay to shoot us down in the streets as we protest.

We can come together now, and overthrow the cult that is overthrowing our government, or we can wait and see how much we can stand to lose before we take to the streets in endless sacrifices.