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This came my way via email and I asked if I could post it on my blog. So, with permission, I offer you...
Response to Response to “The Story Of Stuff”
I was reading an article in the New York Times about Annie Leonard’s film “The Story of Stuff”. In the article it mentioned how her film was rejected by some places of education because the portrayal of corporations as fat suited men with dollar sign bearing top hats was anti-capitalist.
I have another view of corporations: corporations are entities. They have names, they have faces, through their employees and offices they have a body, they have a financial life, and death. They even have legal rights. The fat suited men, whether sporting dollar signs or pumps, are only puppets that can be replaced easily to ensure the optimum health of the corporation.
The ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, and other peoples throughout history created gods and goddesses who controlled their lives and many people spent their lives in service to these gods. We have created—not gods and goddesses—but nonetheless, beings without physical form whose lives are greater than those of our own.
Is this a problem? Many a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish would rightly object to the possibility that corporations could not possibly be anti-monotheistic. Well, don’t worry, that’s why we call them corporations not gods.
This analogy could be amusing aside from the fact that there is a real truth to it. Do we want to see this truth? Can we dare to envision a future without corporations, without being overwhelmed by fear, even for a few seconds? They do not help us to lead happy and healthy lives. They do not help us to be brave or free.
The problem is what they feed on. Corporations can only survive if they keep people consuming things at an increasing rate. When people stop buying, when people learn to meet their own needs, then corporations suffer. And their voices, through our media, tell us that for our own good, we need to need them. They tell us that we cannot stop spending, we cannot learn to take care of ourselves. That would be anti-capitalist. They treat capitalism as a religion, not as an economic structure.
What they feed on is human need, a need that can only flourish in a human attitude of inadequacy. Only when people are unhappy do we spend money as a way to find happiness. As a society we idolize those who can spend the most money. Our heroes: sports stars, actors and actresses & musicians are those who can spend the most money. Some people even become our heroes just by spending money. Our faith is in the corporate world, as religions worldwide fade in significance, they have become who we truly believe we need to accept into our lives.
Our entire cultural mythology is about corporations and the heroes and heroines who support them. This is not anti-capitalist, this is not even truly anti-corporation, there are many other conscious corporations and co-ops out there trying to fight back. This is about watching humanity as a whole and seeing patterns emerge. I too need money to live -- and money is made by corporations.
All systems live to perpetuate themselves, and every morning we choose to be part of the corporate system. Being conscious of the fact that we are making a choice is the first step to freedom.
Sincerely,
Acorn D.
Cortes Island, Canada.
History Worship
We know very little about our Nation's early founders and leaders. We only know what we are taught in history class, which is very little. Today, we have a standard of morals that we hold or wish to hold, our political leaders accountable for, that in truth has nothing to do with their vision, insight or ability to lead our nation.
If we were to hold Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, or any of them to the light of what we think someone needs to be seen in today, they would not stand a chance. Our politics have devolved from the qualities of leadership that created this great nation, to the petty personal assassinations which allow us to be ruled by morons and oppressors.
I personally don't care about who is having or has had affairs. That is between them and their spouse. It has nothing to do with how our nation is led.
Clearly, we have gone awry when you look at the time consumed, the more than $1B spent on investigating and impeaching Clinton for a blow job. Compare that with the real crimes committed by his follow-up act, W. A man whose administration was among the most corrupt. A man who lied to the nation, who ignored intel warning of Al Qaeda, and who squandered our reputation and all the goodwill thereof, by creating wars of choice and choosing to torture.
Are we so distracted by sexual intrigue that we spend our time prying into private matters, yet so disinterested, as a nation, in corruption and fraud, that we choose only to 'look forward'? How do we appear to other nations?
Cheney and Rush are championed by the Right Wing as true patriots, even as they lie, even as they bash a decorated War Hero such as Colin Powell, and continue to try and spread baseless, mindless fear across the land, solely for the sake of "Party" over "Nation".
In keeping with the policy of writing history to suit the writer, the campaign from the Right Wing since the election has been, to create a myth. To create the myth that W kept the country safe, we must ignore that we were attacked on his watch, and that the subsequent anthrax attacks, leveled mostly at Federal Representatives and Journalists that opposed the Bush Administration, never happened.
We must, if we are to believe that myth, believe ourselves to be children who are best taken care of if we do not know and are never told the Truth.
The myth on Torture is running on two fronts: One, that it gained valuable intel, which is what 'kept us safe' and that 'Leading Democrats knew and approved' of the torture. The second part is just in case the American people don't buy the first part.
History War Ship
The Myth America campaign is blaring from the Corporations who are greatly invested and who have profited from the war machinery and the administration that allowed them to merge and take over Public Airwaves as if they were privately owned.
The profits from the media mouthpieces are not manifested in the bottom line of those media corporations. In fact, they are losing money. Rather, it is manifested in the many other investments, mostly in Resource Extraction and War Machinery Economics, that the profits are skyrocketing.
They can afford to take a loss on Limbaugh's contract, on Fox News, because the pay offs past and down the road, if they succeed, are unlimited.
Health Insurance is unregulated in this nation. The high cost of medical care is directly related to the obscene profits reaped by insurance industry power houses. Doctors are not making more money, and fewer people can afford care. Those who have insurance are now at the mercy of a clerk, not a doctor, who will, decline coverage, regardless.
They spend billions on lobbying and advertising to keep us from reforming health care.
Tax exemptions for the wealthiest 2%, which amounts to billions of dollars, at the expense of our nation's infrastructure, schools, health care, and defense. Bring on the mindless Tea Baggers.
Preventing laws that would limit, regulate or prevent Major Financial Corporations from predatory lending practices which have left so many homeless and their credit in ruins, pays big time to those who sponsor the Limbaughs and the FOX brand of misinformation and disinformation.
Keeping us divided as a nation, is how they keep their fortunes multiplying. They can afford billions to save themselves hundreds of billions in revenue.
What they can't afford is for people to start coming together. They can't afford for education to improve so that people learn how to think instead of being told how to think.
They need for us to believe that the use of Torture yielded information we needed. Anyone who has learned anything about torture and how it was designed and what it was used for, knows that torture was designed solely for the purposes of propaganda. To gain false confessions to use to bolster the idea that the government is 'protecting us'.
We, in this nation, are distracted so easily. Our media, which is losing it's toehold as the source of information, continues to feed us diatribes from both sides, with few programs ever talkign to us as adults.
We watch 'discussion panels' which devolve quickly into the WWE trash talk, or Jerry Springer Lite format.
I find this exhausting. I find this fruitless. I find the research on the issues and the source of my information to be more and more, the Internet.
Not everything on the net is true. But everything on the internet can be researched and validated or disproved. More and more of us are gathering, not at the watering holes of Fox, NBC, ABC or any of those, but rather at the running streams of Twitter, blogs and other Social Media sources.
While the extremes on either end will happily pound one another like cartoons with big hammers, those of us who want more indepth and substantial information bypass the stagnate and the turbid waters of the mudholes and move to the streams, and find what we need.
America is changing. There are some who don't see it. There are some who don't want to see it. For them, it is becoming more confusing and more traumatic as they try to retain intact, their image of Myth America.
For those of us who see it, know it and embrace it, we are in the streams and we are doing our part. Without myth, without MSM platforms, and without anything more than our name, we represent, and we do our part to keep the streams flowing.
The desperation on the part of the mythmakers is evident in their increasingly shrill, abusive and threatening rhetoric. They complain about the President putting mustard on a hamburger, and laugh at the joke of a soldier assassinating Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
As long as none of them is caught getting a blow job, their hard-core following will continue to think of them as "Patriots" and as 'saving' this country, which they in fact are tearing to pieces.
I look at the Limbaughs, the FOX panels as I would a magician's assistant. Only there to distract. What they cannot do with pretty costumes and graceful moves, they do with vile, obscene disinformation, as they try to rationalize their wrongs, absolve themselves of responsiblity for their wrongdoing, and to blame the Democrats.
America is changing. We want leaders who are accountable. We are tired of the spin cycle. We want this wheel to take us forward.
Respect v Bullies
We now know that 9/11 could have been completely avoided. I will let others speculate on the agenda of those who ignored the intelligence gathered from one key and several other sources.
When *Ahmed Ressam was caught at the border with a car full of explosives precursors and a map to the LAX Airport, it was because an intelligent Border Agent a woman (Just had to add that) was doing her job as she was trained to do it.
(*Note: He was tried in a US court, had an attorney, and serving time in a US Prison)
He was arrested and, without being tortured, yielded significant and timely intel on the planned 9/11 attacks. This intel was verified through the NSA and their agents who were monitoring 'chatter'. It was put into the Presidential Daily Briefing, handed to W while he was on the Golf Course, and ignored.
The consequences of that stupidity and arrogance continues to rack up damage, not only in lives lost on 9/11, not just the clean up crews who suffer and die from toxic/hazardous exposure, not just the spiritual numbing of our nation, but to the continued lives, blood and treasure swallowed by the wars, and the loss of our National standing as a Giant upon the moral High Ground.
Worse, our sense of being safe within our own borders, has been shattered. All because the simpleton in the White House, and his handlers, chose to ignore the greatest threat to our nation since Pearl Harbor.
There were several attacks launched after that, by us. War against Afghanistan and then Iraq, to where we are now considered an "Occuppying Power" in the Middle East.
The division between the US and other Nations, has been profound. The Extreme Right Wing emerging as a screaming clown, running senselessly through the political landscape, chanting mindless fears of Xenophobic rants, seditious cries for secession, racist rants against our president and people of color.
Our Nation, divided by a volatile Wingnut faction which demands "Equal Time" and dominates the airwaves that are monopolized, for the most part, owned by a few corporate entities that has a sole mission of creating fear and hostility to keep us divided, nay--screaming at one another, on their "News" shows, allowing greater crimes upon our economy to glide under the radar for years, until they hit the Wall. (Street)
Companies with agendas of their own that have nothing to do with what is best for the nation or in any way concerned about getting essential information to the public at large, run entire networks.
We are fed a steady diet of vapid criticisms of Obama for shaking the hand of a leader of another nation, as if there was another option? What? Slap him down? Run away from him (like W did)? Order an airstrike on his country? Now, the rants are that he was 'smiling' when he did it. Puh--leeez!
The divisions continue and those who created the divides continue to find any excuse to rant. The media seems more than willing to oblige. Behold, the 'panel discussions' format:Producers who book these guests tell them to take an opposing position, to hold their ground, and will direct into that earpiece you see them wearing, to 'get more vocal!' or 'Step it up!'.
These are not discussions between intelligent people. This is not teaching us how to discuss or view differing points of view. This is perpetuating the rant and scream tactics that are both dividing our nation and fracturing our image abroad as we appear to be uncivilized, ignorant and rude.
The other side of the news is about a darling singing sensation, and the outcome of a beauty pageant.
There are issues more relevant to be discussed and aired. Very little of any of those come to the fore.
We need to look at how we got here. We need to look at who 'done this to us', (if you like Cowboy colloquialisms). We need to look at the people who were responsible for ignoring the warnings and led us into this quagmire.
The same people who ignored the intel, allowed it to happen, were gleefully ready to start wars, occupy and raid the resources of a nation that had done nothing to us, and torture anyone they captured, and declare they were doing all of the above 'to keep us safe'.
Torture has only one outcome: It yields false confessions. That is all it was ever used for. A nation at fault has serious need of propaganda to control its own citizens, and to justify their ongoing crimes against other nations and Humanity at large.
We traded out our foothold as one of the most respected Nations in hopes of becoming one of the most feared. People attack what they fear.
The Color of Fear
Torture has never yielded valuable information, nor timely information. We must remind our former president and his cronies, that "24" is a TV show, not "real life".
Clearly, the false information yielded by the torture regime was useful against our nation. We were jerked around with daily Terror Alert Levels that ranged from Green to Red. We never went to Green and never went to Red. We were in a more constant State of Yellow, with the occasional "Orange Alert" thrown in to keep us from getting complacent.
We looked like idiots. What do you do under each color? Arm yourself? Strip search anyone you see on the street that doesn't have a white face? Or just stay in a suspended state of fear, and hope and pray that your president will keep you safe?
While praying for the latter, the impulse is to squelch any comments from more rational minds that say how silly all this is. It limited the discussion of what had happened and why, as well as what was happening to us as a nation to Zero.
TV "News" shows, both Mainstream Media and Cable, became accustomed to the Jerry Springer Lite version of 'discussions'. Producers booked guests to have panel discussions that were nothing more than shouting matches, barking into the guest's earpieces to 'hold their position!' and 'Get more vocal!' and 'Interrupt him/her and don't let (them) win!)'.
We lost any real example of how to discuss the very relevant issues.
The aftermath is still in the fermenting stage. Quietly, the Daily Terror Alerts were dropped from newscasts and then the bottom of the screen crawls.
But the aserbic, ranting rhetoric platform of "discussions" in every form of media, lives on. Our journalistic media has become the WWE of information: Scripted, plotted, and delivered with no regard to anything except performance value and fireworks.
Those who justify our nation's criminal actions as having kept us safe v those who say we need to stop bullying the rest of the world.
Lost in all of this, is the simple outstanding fact: WE are being bullied, by our own Government. Elected officials are taking the extreme stances of their party with no regard to how insipid it makes them look. Clearly, it is more than ever, attack along party lines, the Nation be damned.
Those with constructive ideas, worthy notions, get no air time, unless they devolve into the Jerry Springer Lite format that is omnipresent in the media today.
We lose sight of the fact that the information that could have saved us was ignored by W and his squad. It was valid, it was real and it was critical.
The only information that was of any importance to that Administration was extracted by torture for the sake of torture. Those extractions are what led to all those Daily Terror Alerts and the colors of fear that ran our lives, our subconscious and have divided us ever since. All lies, mind you, but that seems to not hold enough water for those who continue to advocate for torture as a valuable tool.
They ignored information that would keep us safe, and preferred to employ only that which, gleaned from torture, held no truths, but would keep us afraid. We were terrorized by our own government. Clearly, they had mastered, for a short time, the merchandizing of fear, and too many of us bought it.
Typical of bullies, they had no ideas for anything constructive. I think they tortured for sport. I think it made them feel powerful. I think they thought they would never be outed. They lied us into a war to justify torturing people to give us false information to justify us being at war, justifying the use of torture... the endless circle of Evil begets more Evil.
The relentless, mindless criticisms of every decision, handshake, facial expression, shows a party either so bereft of an idea or substance, that the only thing they know how to employ is paranoia, to the point of mental illness. They still continue to hawk their flimsy wares of fear and suspicion. It worked so well before...
Sadly, the more intelligent, moderate and progressive voices from within their own ranks, are drowned out, creating more violent contractions. I wonder what kind of miscreant they will birth for the next election cycles, but I am also afraid to look. As ugly and perverted as it was last time, next time promises to be even more extreme.
Despite the rationale that we had to use torture to keep us safe, the proof being that we were not attacked since 9/11, we know better. We know that there were multiple anthrax attacks that remain unsolved. The attacks were aimed solely at critics of the Bush Administration, mind you, but that also is ignored.
Yes, there were scapegoats designed to make it look like the attacks had been solved, but the evidence against the two main targets has fallen apart, even after the suicide of one of the more brilliant scientists we had. Our government had no interest in preventing or solving these multiple acts of terrorism, and the Truth is of little value when propaganda is so readily available, and easily employed.
If torture was of any use in the sense of keeping us safe, why was no one who was tortured able to yield anything of value on those attacks? Were they not asked? Or was it already known who was weaponizing and distributing the anthrax, and there was no hurry to stop them?
That question and many, many others have no air to be asked in the media. We are too busy being distracted by Teabaggers, mindless rants, and singing sensations. We are also seeing a resurgence of other divisive mindless pursuits: Denying women the right to choose at the most critical juncture of her life; Denying Same-Sex Marriage; and who is more Christian than the other; Obama is a Muslim, was not born in the US-- The toybox for distractions is, apparently, bottomless.
I expect the Octomom will resurface as the MSM darling from time to time, when it starts to look like we might be close to talking to one another and figuring things out.
As long as we are kept in a constant state of panic, fear, ignorance, disrespect, suspicion and mindless contention, we are more vulnerable to the both, attacks from hostile nations and worse, from our own government stripping away our rights, damaging our image, squandering our goodwill in the world, all to 'keep us safe'.
The Ignorance Alert for today is High: Orangish-Red, with a dab of insanity.
Easy Prey
While the wingnuts are staging their incoherent rants, hypocritical protests; those with clearer minds and perhaps the essential "common sense" ingredient, are pointing and laughing.
Clearly it is a thinly disguised Obama bashing fest. It's bringing in the racists, the reactionaries and the hysterical fringe.
"The definition of 'stupid'," I was once told, "is someone waking up in a brand new world everyday." In other words, nothing is learned from experience, much less history.
It appears that these fringers, overwhelmingly comprised of loud, angry types, whipped into a frenzy by Right Wing Extremist rhetoric spewing from the orifices of Faux News and their ilk, only the past few months, became aware of the economic situation and the crushing debt the failed policies of the previous Administration. Naturally, they blame the new guy. Well, he IS black you know!
They direct their anger at him. These are the same people who wildly cheered on the dangerous deregulations of the Reagan Years, wherein all the rules that prevented economic meltdown were removed, allowing thieves to run wild, without fear of investigation or consequences.
Those same wild-eyed cheerleaders are now booing and hissing the outcome, the logical result of taking the rules out of the game. Worse, they are arming themselves and want to be viewed as dangerous. They then get paranoid about being viewed as 'dangerous' while advocating killing, assassination, violent overthrow, "by any means possible" chants and rhetoric.
Clearly, the mob mentality is taking hold. That is where a mass of people will act, sometimes violently, but overall without thinking of the consequences.
There is no consistent theme to the meme other than misdirected anger, pointless hate, fueled by the rhetoric of a wealthy fatman and his wealthy cohorts.
Bottom line: The people protesting, IF they are in the upper 10% bracket of $250K+, sure don't look it. IF they are so successful and wealthy, how did they manage to accomplish that with what appears to be an appalling lack of education or mental connection to reality? They cannot even define the term 'fascist' (and some could not spell it correctly), but they held up posters with that in bold letters.
If they are the ones making less, and I strongly suspect they make a lot less, I think they should, if they feel that strongly about it, give back the tax cuts/extra refund that they get this year. They should give it to a cause they firmly believe in. Give it to some Rich guy who 'really knows how they think.'
For those who are taking Ayn Rand to the extreme and are against ALL taxes, look around you. Without taxes, who will pay for the roads, the schools, the hospitals, the military, the congressman, the President, the police and the firemen?
Before taxes, the wealthiest people owned the towns. They paid for the cops. Whom do you think the cops protected? If that is your idea of Democracy, go ahead.
Without taxes we will have no military capable of defending us against those other countries that will invade us and steal our resources for themselves. It will, very quickly, become a moot discussion.
We need taxes. We need taxes to be fair. We have a massive debt incurred mostly by the unfairness/imbalance of how the wealthiest were allowed to hide their assets/income and pay the lowest tax rates on top of that. It became fashionable to not pay taxes if you were wealthy enough. Patriotism be damned. Getting away without paying, that was heroic!
And now, they don't want to pay their share of taxes. If they don't pay them, how does anyone expect the debt to be paid off, ever? Hold up that baby. Yup, $30k in debt already. Whom do you think laid that debt on your child, moron?
We need to be able to come together to undo a whole lot of damage and to save ourselves. But as long as the fringe can suck the air out of any discussion, nothing will get done.
Point and Laugh
We are laughing at the teabaggers. I like to call the Right Wing Fringe "The neverending clown car". Just as you think you have seen the last of the wild-eyed mob mentals spill out, out pops another rhetoric fueled phlame throwing extremist.
We are laughing at them. The wealthiest extremists who flog them on are laughing at them as they get them to rant and protest having the wealthy pay their share of taxes, even though that share is less than the proportion that any of the protesters are paying.
The purpose behind extremism is to prevent us, as a nation, from coming together for our common good. Divided we fail. Division is the goal of extremism. Either side. The intent is to tear away from the center.
While we are all laughing, watching the insanity parade snake its way to the sea, bigger issues go unaddressed. There are bigger issues we NEED to come together on. We need to regain our rights and our standing in the world as having at least a foothold on the higher moral ground.
We need to address Health Care, Market Regulation, Corruption and Infrastructure. Those have all been neglected and we are paying the price, daily. We need to address the War Crimes that were committed under the last administration. We need to investigate and try those who committed torture. We need to get our rights to privacy back and end the domestic spying.
There are enough things about the current administration that need to be looked at and fixed before it is too late. But it won't happen because we are constantly being distracted by the parade of clown cars, some driven by mavericks and former mavericks, and fueled by mindless extremist networks.
Apparently, being stupid is a virtue to the Teabaggers. They are opposed to, among other things, educating our young. Clearly a lack of education has made them the legends they are today.
Not sure how we will look back at this time in our history. Will it be remembered as the last desperate throes of fear mongering pile of hypocrites, smoldering in their own stench?
Or will it be a time when we turned away from the extremism, disengaged from the battles with the mentally skewed, and came together to overcome the damage done.
At some point, the amusement of the insanity will fade. What real damage will have been done during our mock swordfights with cynical sloganeers, that we missed completely?
While some of us engage and disengage in these skirmishes, there needs to be a greater part of us that keeps our eye on the ball that is our nation, and our Rights.
While we are laughing at the Teabaggers for their hypocrisy, and their wealthy sponsors are laughing at them as lackeys, I can't help but sense that an even more dangerous situation is brewing and someone is laughing at all of us, as we self-implode on distractions, as they strip away our Rights.
Divided we fail, repeatedly
I have long ago been wary to the point of weary, when I hear divisive rhetoric. The cuts in funding to education, which began in earnest in the mid-80's are paying off big time for those who want to keep us ignorant, and fearful. It has made it even easier to keep us divided by abstract concepts and assumptions, than at any time previous.
Racism is a learned thing that is taught to us to make us mistrust the person inside by the color of their skin outside. As overt racism is becoming passe, other 'isms' are gathering prestige of a political nature, in order to keep us more divided than united.
Noam Chomsky used the term: "Industrial Feudalism" to define our society, nationally and 
globally in this day and age.
Too bad that history, as it is taught in schools today, teaches nothing of feudalism and how it worked. For those who understand it, the parallels between then and now are starkly revealed: Serfs and Lords.
In order for feudalism to survive, an endless supply of serfs was required. The cheapest of labor. The Lords became their 'Protectors.' However, only the converse was true: it was the serfs who defended the castle walls of the Lords. Protecting the Protector gave rise to the illusion of being protected when in fact, we were and are, being misused against one another.
The other necessary factor, was preventing the serfs from uniting: either with the serfs of other feudal lords; or in the cases of the most powerful Lords, to keep them divided against one another.
This was accomplished through a system of honors and awards given to a select few who, although they never rose to the heights of "lord" were no longer at the bottom of the echelons and had some authority over those under them.
They could, at any point, however, be dismissed from that lofty step up, and had to work even harder in some ways, to keep their masters happy. They became estranged from their former peers who failed to see their predicament and had no sympathy for the travails of being 'upper class'.
Those mid-management types were annoyed and felt disrespected by their former peers. Jealousies, mistrusts and resentments grew. One way to rise to a higher level was to earn favor by having information to pass on to those above. This made yet another tier both above and below Middle Class. Mistrust grew. Spies, gossip, all were used to keep the people divided and not trusting of one another.
All the while, those at mid-level and below, had to work even harder just to stay one step ahead of starvation or eviction. The most important aspect of keeping underlings in line was in limiting their education. Forms of communication other than directly speaking to one another, were crude signals and symbols left in places to be found and interpreted.
The lords prospered. But, having so much wealth was never enough. They wanted more. Always more. They consolidated their turf and holdings through Marriages and by taking over the lands and properties of other lords, through battles.
They were allowed to battle others only when the king deemed it permissible. The kings wanted more also. The lords, essentially, did their bidding, like it or not. The kings were rarely seen and few knew anything about them except that they were behind the biggest walls, had the biggest military and made all the laws.
Serfs were forced to fight in battles, wherein if they won, the Lords over them had even more power, and they themselves had even less. Or, if they lost the battle, they lost everything and could end up as slaves in even more dire situations as the property of the lord that defeated their lord. The other was always worse.
Had they but known and understood then, that none of these lords or even kings had any real power, and that the authority they had and which they abused constantly, was only that which was given to them by the collective unwashed who had somehow, in some way, agreed to not trust themselves, not stand together, but to fear one another. That without these 'underlings' those over them had nothing.
Had we understood that I would like to think we would have learned to come together and to work together for the common good, rather than to slave for the Authorized powers to increase only their wealth at the cost of our own.
Fast Forward:
We are living in a world divided up by those heavy with authority. We believe the worst about people of whom we know nothing and whose culture is misrepresented to us, daily in a "Them and Us" scenario.
Greater and greater wealth is amassed by fewer and fewer who create a system that serves only themselves and which is paid for by those who derive little from it other than the misconception that we are being protected and saved by those whose power and wealth we protect from others who may or may not be trying to take it from them.
I am not surprised that we were lied into the Iraq war. I am not surprised that we were left unprotected and not warned about 9/11. That single event served to consolidate our collective fears and misunderstanding, in one massive push to invade a country that is rich in resources and unable to defend itself. Our blind trust in government as protector was used against us.
Equal and greater threats to our safety and security as a nation, abound. Greater despots, greater cruelty and mass murderers are easy to see if one but looks. North Korea has capabilities and was brandishing threats more real than any of the fictional Yellow Cake contrived by the war mongering mongols of the Bush Administration.
But we ignored North Korea. Not because we could not win, but because we can only lose. If we win, we will have conquered a nation of 23.5 Million starving people. We then must feed all of them. That alone, would bankrupt us and take a major share of our own, dwindling resources.
Factor in that we would have spent billions in military expenses, weaponry and who knows how much Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, XE et al, would have profiteered from it. Our dead would be in the thousands or 10's of thousands. We would be overwhelmed with burying, feeding and paying for... a country with no resources that can be extracted.
The Mega Corporations, the Global International Lords of our day, pick and choose which wars to be fought based on what they can gain from it. Ignorantly, blindly, the modern day serfs fly into battle after being fed a stream of propaganda, appealing to and misguiding our patriotism, with lies, pandering to fears of annihilation, while destroying what we claim to value most: The Truth.
It is them or it is us. We know nothing about them. We have walled ourselves off from them. We fear them. It is easier to kill them.
Now, the chants begin anew: Socialism! Communism! Islamism! We fear those things. We are taught that 'socialism leads to communism'. It does not, but the fiction holds sway in the uneducated populace.
We are taught that Communism failed! What we don't realize is that Communism never existed. The peasants, serfs of their day, bought into the rantings of a cult leader of their day, who promised them unity and equality, but who delivered corruption instead. It was corruption that failed that State, not "Communism".
We Are Not "Immuned"
Politicians who disgraced our own history by pandering to the fears and inflaming the ignorant with rhetoric of "isms", and thems vs us, did so to keep us from looking at what was happening to our own government.
Yes, 'communism' failed. But Russia still stands. They call it communism, again, but it is still the same corruption that it was back in the days of Stalin, Lenin and Kruschev. And it will fail again.
Corruption kills every ism. Corruption is what is killing Capitalism. But we are not educated enough to see it. Those who do the bidding of the masters above them, so that they can keep their positions as lesser masters, again fan the flames of xenophobia and of fears to rile the masses and keep us from coming together, united in this nation, and perhaps truly seeking peace with other nations.
Corruption left unchallenged, and kept in dark secret places, will bring down our nation, our Democracy, the same as it brought down the Mighty Russian Empire and the Fall of Rome before them, and every fallen empire since.
Blind Fear: Ignorance is Bliss
Corruption prevails as we battle amongst ourselves to reveal it or to protect it. We battle those who believe it is protecting them and who believe they are protecting us by protecting the corruption that is killing our Democracy.
We are led to distractions of every sort: Media feeds us vapid celebrity antics as if they were news, and ignores the wars, such as the genocides in Sudan that will make the leader of that country very wealthy as he allows the Oil Companies to extract what they want, and pay only him.
Removing the people by starving them, mass murders, rapes, and tortures, all part of the plan of clearing the path for the masters of Oil. As these people were literally, by military, being driven out of their homes, chased down and killed, it was for the sole purpose of removing them as an impediment to the coming Oil Regime.
We are too distracted to know, too uneducated to understand. One woman, hopeful to the point of exuberant, told me:
"Those people don't have to starve now! Look!" she points to a report, "they found OIL in that country!" Her eyes were wide, and tears of joy streamed down her face. She thought that finding oil would be what would save those people? In fact, it was the discovery of those oil fields that set the genocide in motion!
But we will never war against Sudan. Sudan's 'leaders' are those who allow our Big Oil Masters to take what they want. War is reserved for those unwilling to be walked over by the Masters.
Remember: "All wars must be authorized by the Kings behind the walls."
"ExSchism" Me
Every "ism" is promoted and demonized by fiction. Fiction created by lesser masters to please those who give them access to the funds that give them comfort outside of their failed and sickened consciences. All the higher masters seek in return, is all of the resources be theirs.
This land is my land, this land is your land... but they want it to be no man's land. They want it to be theirs. This is where they create their wealth and we give it to them, free of charge, and spill our blood against our brothers and sisters to keep them in place.
Someday, the modern day serfs will learn how to educate themselves. They will lose their fears and mistrusts and realize they can and already have, survive any betrayals that come along. That the cost of not trusting one another is disunity. In that failure to unite, we continue to divide and conquor ourselves and diminish the future of our children and the children yet to come.
Education is the only cure. We must learn how to learn. We cannot be driven by media that seeks above all, to sell to us. We must look into the faces of people we don't know, and get to know them.
The internet is becoming the point of connection, of learning, sharing and understanding one 
another. Social media is opening up doors and windows to enlightenment and understanding. There are those who fear the expanding of our global consciousness and they attempt, with failed tactics of fear, rumors, lies and false "patriotism" to misuse the medium and to create more fear and mistrust.
I see them who market their fears and lies, as failing in the light of more and more, better, accurate and more truthful information and dialogue. I am seeing that we can overcome our fears and our ignorance and find our common ground, and realize, it was always there, it was always ours.
We have a lot of work to do. A lot of great things can be accomplished once we shine the light into our dark places and clean out the dirt that has sickened us all these many generations. We can heal, together, without fear.
First we must look into the mirror, and get to know ourselves. You look more like me, on the inside and I look more like you. We can unite in Peace.
Because History is Already Repeating Itself
History, like any teacher, has to repeat itself, over and over again. Some learn, but most don't. Reason being that most have never looked at the mechanics of history and HOW things went wrong or why.
Schools don't teach us how to learn, they teach us WHAT to learn. The fine art of regurgitation has created in us, a nation of confused, apathetic, fearful reactionary types that are too often, easily misled by inflammatory rhetoric.
As key as education is in the survival of any species, so is controlling the thought processes of the masses by dumbing them down, key to controlling the masses. The US is now one of the least educated countries in the world.
Worse, the processes of learning are not only ignored, but systematically snuffed out by the very system that is supposed to be there to teach us how to save ourselves. Curiosity is discouraged. Thinking outside the box or pondering deeper into a subject is discouraged by teachers who are ground out by the same mill that creates textbooks rife with factual errors and missing component information, from Math to History and Economics is not taught in most schools now.
The Arts: Music, Dancing, Painting, Writing, Drama wherein the mind finds constructive outlets for expression and inspiration, are being dropped as 'wasteful'.
Ideas are not discussed, they are ridiculed. Debate is not engaged, it is discouraged in lieu of recitation of accepted patterns of thinking. History is boring. Economics, dry. Communications all about spin, where I understand, there are bright futures and big bucks waiting for the adept.
The very best teachers, the creative, the passionate, the inspiring, have been systematically weeded out to make it more conformist on the front lines, less 'educational'.
We have become a nation more uneducated and helpless than at any other time in our history. We substitute rage for constructive action, and get nowhere. We are easier to control and to mislead because we don't know how to think for ourselves or see what is really being said and done to us. We become 'dependent' on our elected officials, who in turn, can easily betray us.
Radical, wingnut extremists can recruit the fearful and the uneducated and use them for their own amusement, profit and political agenda. Perpetuating the cycle of futility, rage and mistrust.
Getting Lost for Lack of a Moral Compass
Now, we are literally, as a nation, wandering lost int he deserts of the Middle East. We have learned nothing of what the underlying mechanics of war are, and thus are surprised when we find ourselves again, spilling blood and treasure in lands where we don't even speak the language.
We were led there by those who exploited the ignorant fears in enough of the population, that those who had keener vision were shouted down and trampled over, as the nation listened to lies and thought they were the truth.
We feel our 'trust' was betrayed. I have a real problem with that. If more people had learned how to learn, they never would have allowed a fraudulent election to render a dunce whose only goal was to demolish the Constitution, raid the oil fields of Iraq. We would have, more of us, seen through the rhetoric and the lies and laughed him and his band of mutant trolls out of town.
We could have stopped it. There were opportunities, not lost, but sacrificed on the altar of politics, putting us all at risk. Petitions by Members of the House of Representatives to overthrow the bad Florida Count and force a recount were brought before Congress more than 10 times by more than 10 Representatives.
All they needed was ONE signature from ONE SENATOR in order to be enforced. Representative after representative pleaded before the house. Each one was slammed down by the gavel when the leader asked if they had obtained the ONE necessary signature. Each had asked all 100 Senators and not one had signed it. Not one.
In that "Not One" unanimity, Sens. Kerry and Edwards. Ostensibly, they promoted themselves as the guardians of our Democracy, upright and 'not politically' driven. (Oxymorons, anyone?). They knew that this procedural hearing would get little if any press.
Indeed, it received none. Why, if they were A: Democrats, and B: So concerned for our nation, would they allow what they knew and often said, was a fraudulent election to stand?
I think they wanted Gore to fail so that they could run in 4 years, instead of 8. Politics above Country. The Dems, just as guilty as the frothing-at-the mouth GOP with their wingnut fringe leading the fray.
Moral Compasses neatly tucked away. No need to see what danger lie ahead, just bide your time and wait your turn. The monster they let feed on the fears of our nation, later overtook their campaigns with smears, lies and underhanded tricks.
Their egos suffered massive defeats, and our nation was flung into the abyss by the childish antics of a drunken, ignorant, spoiled brat from a wealthy, powerful family.
They could have stood up. They could have pulled the E-Brake. But they decided to let the train wreck, thinking it would make easier, their stepping into the shoes of the Presidency on down the road. Just point to the smoldering pile of national chaos, and smile paternally, and the prize would be theirs.
We all paid the price. But have we learned anything? Or do we only know how to get mad?
The Ends of WarI can tell you how the war will end. I have been to the past and the future is running down that very same track, so I am pretty sure it will end exactly as I tell you. First, let me qualify the statement of any war 'ending'. Once started, no war ever ends. There are only quiet interludes between the bombings. We call those, the 'ends' of war, but the cycle is not broken and nothing is ever won.
Wandering Lost In The Deserts
The war will end with all the oil companies and other multi-national mega corporations taking over all the resources in that area. They will engage their own security. In this case, it will probably be Blackwater, which has changed its name to "XE".
We will pull out most of our troops and engage our Diplomatic Corp in keeping whatever puppet government that install, viable. We will not allow anyone to take the Presidency of that nation that would not look favorably upon the US. We have overthrown democratic regimes in the past, not because they were a threat to us, but because they wanted to keep their resources for their country and were not friendly to allowing major corporations to come in, create poverty by taking the resource rich lands for themselves, and then exploit that poverty in the following ways:
- Keeping the population too broken and scattered to unite against the raiding of resources and unable to hold elections to throw out the corrupt.
- To keep the overall impression of that region as scattered, unstable and in need of 'guidance'.
- To make it easier to bribe or coerce any elected official into allowing the resources to be drawn out without concern for the people, the land or the future. A corrupt government is easy to deal with. An Honest one more troublesome.
The issues surrounding that process will be shrouded in boring, monotone delivery. Information will not be available.
Little risk of our Nation, being raised on instant gratification and distractions, mired in our own grinding economic woes, even rising to question what goes on in a nation we know nothing about, and whose language and culture we do not understand. It will remain a place where they don't look like us. That underlying racist inclination will allow not allow us to view them as anything other than "other".
The people in that broken country will, from time to time, attempt to rise up and retake the levers and the wheel of their own destiny, their own nation. Those will be shot down by the security forces of the conglomerates: XE or roses by any other name.
It will, if it even pings the radar in the West, be portrayed as "uprisings by renegades" and we might catch our breath for a moment. Then we will hear that it was all 'put down' and we can feel safe again.
The people will eventually sense futility in doing things democratically. They will tire of being treated like trash in their own country. They will become more and more angry at the accumulation of wealth by those in power, corrupt puppets who are supported by the Multi-Nationals.
They will become easy converts to the more violent, more radical forms of zealots. They will believe what they are told on religious and ethnic topics because they were raised in poverty, treated like trash and lack the education it would take to know that they are being misled and misused.
Violence will break out. Our country will then feel called upon to use the might of our military to put down the uprising. Bombings, assassinations, and our CIA covert, Black Ops will deploy to 'restore order'.
People in the region will shake their fists at us. Our leaders will make a sad face, declare that we were not appreciated. Our Nation will think of them as ingrates.
We will be ripe, once again, for attacks. If we have a president that ignores the warnings, he or she can then use them as a battle cry to once again wage war. We will be told that despite all that we have done for those people, they hate us because of our freedoms.
We, lacking the ability to learn, remember, or to think through how stupid that sounds, will again send our men and women, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers into a foreign land to spill their blood and the blood of innocents, at a cost to both nations, that is breaking the heart of God.
The cycle is already beginning, even as this war is supposed to be winding down. It has worked in every nation, including our own.
If we were to have learned anything by the scandal at the Department of the Interior, it is this one thing: Our nation is run for the sake of Resource Extraction by Mega Corporations who take from us, that which belongs to us, and then sells it back to us at exorbitant prices.
Those who live with the injustices of puppet governments, Federally supported intimidation and bullying, and who are thought of as 'ungrateful' and 'other' are right here, in our own backyards. Just look at Indian Country and you will see how this cycle of Nation Taking has worked for over 400 years.
Now, look at the Middle East. Look closer. Tell me what you see.
Cults are hollow places where only one voice is heard. It may come through many mouths, but only one voice is allowed to be heard.
I'm trying to find a way to explain, and maybe I can't, why it is I get flashbacks to a horrible event when I see Rush Limbaugh bouncing up and down, waving his arms, gleefully wallowing in adoration, his eyes glazed over with a 'high'.
A man who clearly bullies his party by publicly humiliating anyone that disagrees with him, until they grovel, publicly, to apologize.
Like a king, he keeps his foot on their necks and then, magnanimously, he allows them to crawl away, thanking him for his kindness as they genuflect out the door.
Anyone that tries to claim leadership of that party, is pounced on by his rotundness and publicly thrashed.
The party is in ruins and he flogs them, with his supposed 24 Million listeners, which is, apparently, more like 1.4 million at any given time (plenty enough, but why lie or exaggerate the stats unless he thinks it is not enough?) ...and they cheer him on as their messiah.
All his radical ideas failed and he has no other ideas, won't allow other ideas and they are cheering him on? "Lemmings! To the Rescue! Follow me!" and over the cliffs, into the seas of oblivion, they go. Rush, yelling into his microphone, exact orders of how they are supposed to do it.
People who should be able to speak their mind in that party, only speak off the record and anonymously for fear that he will take offense. They cheer him because they fear him. If they don't fervently demonstrate their their loyalty to him, their place in the party will be in jeopardy.
He's a drug addict! He lies! His ideas failed and failed BIG TIME. But no one dares even so much as hint that they disagree that he is the defacto leader of the GOP???
The Other Cult Leader
It reminds me, unfortunately, of Jonestown. The last episode. Where all the followers had been for months, pounded by the voice of their once beloved leader, 24/7 with his diatribes, his preaching and his rantings. He too, was loudly applauded and adored when he took the stage. They were afraid not to. They competed to demonstrate their adoration of him as he bounced on the stage, waving his arms, eyes glazed over with the rush of power.
He had no love for those people, his people. He had nothing but contempt for them and they were afraid of him. So afraid that as he told them to drink the Kool Aid and to force it down the throats of their children and babies, they did it.
He kept ranting over the PA system that he was the only one who could save them. That they had to do what he was telling them to do because without him they were nothing and belonged nowhere. He told them as he was murdering them, that he was saving them.
Those who survived, escaped by running through the jungles, hiding. They did not know who was coming to rescue them and who was coming to murder them. Some died from that fear. When they emerged, traumatized and confused, the horror stories came out.
The images flash over each other: Limbaugh/Jones. I am thinking that what was once a bright shining party, a healthy opposition has devolved into a cult of personality and they are doomed to extinguish their own lights by listening to the one voice that has the microphone, and is telling them what to think and what to say and what to do. He allows no dissent. He publicly humiliates those who dare not worship him.
The Party drank the Kool Aid. They drank it a long time ago when they abdicated their right to think for themselves and became part of a system that relies more and more, now solely on, the illusion that must be cast and recast daily as it falls apart in the light of day.
Newt Gingrich, possibly the most adept politician ever to be in the Republican party denounced Rush Limbaugh and despite the fat man's rantings, and scathing diatribes that have followed, Newt has not apologized.
I don't like Newt. His a fraud in my book. A hypocrite of the lowest order. But he knows the game and he knows the Emperor has no clothes. And he knows that if he stands up to him, the fat man will tumble. When he does, those who are desperate for another leader to follow, will likely follow him.
Newt knows one when he sees one.
The power is failing. The fat man is wetting himself, unable to prove his omnipotence he is becoming more and more visible as impotent.
It is my guess that party members will quietly drift away now. Some will stay and drink the Kool Aid, but the magic of being in line with the bully has lost its potency.
Yes, they had it coming for handing over their power to a madman, drug addict, who used his forum to scare the common man, inflame race hate, and worse. More and more, they relied on smears. In doing so, they got it all over them and they stink of it.
Yes, they have it coming.
But I don't like it. With the Republicans imploding and the party in tatters, it may never come back again. If it does, it will take a very long time. During the time that it takes for them to let go of the poison, rebuild and reclaim their spot, if they can; or for a third party to emerge powerful enough to balance our houses, we run the very risk of having one party too powerful.
We may or may not trust those who are in charge now, but what about the next one we elect? Will all that power go to their head? Will the lack of a healthy opposition lead us to where there is no dissent?
At some point down the road, will we be drinking the Kool Aid or running through the jungles, not knowing what is right, or wrong; who is friend and who is foe?
We need a healthy two party system. We need a healthy opposition. We need to be challenged and for flaws to be revealed and courses corrected through that process.
There are some who say "Do away with all the parties". I can see how they would think that. But it won't change anything. In fact, it might even make it worse.
I would be interested to know how you see this one. Drop me a line.
Meanwhile, I keep checking my own cupboards, to make sure there is no Kool Aid in there.
