Asking: What Would Charlie Do?

Divide and Conquer

It's all they know. Charlie Manson wanted absolute power. He was willing to murder or have others murder for him, complete random strangers, in order to, in his twisted mind, have a race war spark up and set Whites against Blacks. "Helter Skelter" was his mission.

He figured that the races would fight and tear each other down until both were so weak, that all he had to do was stroll in and take over what was left.

Opportunity Squandered

It seems that the GOP has taken a few pages from the Playbook of Charlie Manson. Their wingnut conspiracies, laughable at best, being touted on major network/cable media as if valid.

The GOP had an opportunity to distinguish itself as NOT the party of Bush-Cheney and all the hideous baggage that comes with that, but as hard-working, team spirited, ready to work with the new Administration to start fixing some major problems, and building our nation back up, better than before.

They could have been a part of that. But they chose instead to snarl, bite, sabotage, sulk and become the party of "NO". They offered a counter budget proposal that had no numbers in it. Just tax breaks for the very wealthy, and perhaps, a few pennies for you and I. A 14 page document (including cover and backing) with NO numbers! Waved on high, at a press conference, as their 'Alternative budget.'

Health Care, which would make our nation able to compete with all the other nations who presently have the advantage of National Health Care, is the target they are aiming at now. They have no alternative to offer. In fact, after touting they would have one, they then proudly proclaimed, they didn't have to offer one. They just want this one to fail.

More importantly, they want it to fail so they can bring down the most intelligent, articulate, visionary president of our lifetime. "It will be his Waterloo..." Senator Kane said in his teleconference with other Republicans.

As this battle for power plays out, people are losing their jobs, their homes, their insurance. People are dying. The GOP is willing to allow random people to die so that they can have this war between themselves and one man.

To add to the noise, is a constant bleating of wingnuts and their fear conspiracies. "Terrorist, Muslim, Angry Black Man..." which now devolves into the outright "Racist!" being screamed from the airwaves by some of the biggest racists ever to grab a microphone. Bad enough those rife buzzwords get repeated on other media, but worse still, the totally insane "Birthers" who now have a solid place in the CNN format in the form of Lou Dobbs.

Everything is designed to not only make us mistrust Obama and defeat any of the good work he tries to do, but moreover, to once again rip this nation apart; Black v White. Riots in the streets.

That, my friends, is where they want this to go.
Keeping us divided is how they can conquer us. They? Who they? They are those who, while we are busy calling each other names, throwing rocks at each other, lynching, and yelling... quietly access the Biggest Piggy Bank ever: Tax Dollars.

Tax dollars that go into the war machine. Halliburton, KBR, are the best known. Tax dollars that come from taking our resources, OURS, the oil, the minerals, the timber and the water... and not paying for it. Further, getting 'tax breaks' for taking it and making themselves wealthy. Getting Bonus money, such as when W just handed an extra $8Billion to the oil companies, at the same time they brought in, what was at that time, RECORD profits. ("Have to reward them for their good work so they can keep doin' it.") He did that with the stroke of a pen.

And before we even knew the economy was in trouble, he gave over $80 Billion to AIG, and billions more to other companies-- All major contributors to his campaign, with not a word to congress or anyone.

There is money to be made and money for the taking as long as we stay divided, and at war amongst ourselves. An endless war fueled by fear, lies, and mindless attacks.

Those clown cars keep coming because someone is filling them, and giving them momentum to crash into our line of sight. At the cost of our nation's security, the lives of real people, and the future itself, these wingnuts are being flung into view to distract us until we lose sight of the work to be done.

The next election is already being funded by Insurance companies who are paying $1 Million or more, per day, to defeat legislation that will do two things: Give access to healthcare to tens of millions of our own people and force, by the competition of a public option, Insurance companies to compete for our business and play fair.

The delay past the summer break is time for them to keep hammering on the airwaves how bad it is to have healthcare for everyone. More time to fill the air with lies about what the program is and can or will do. They stand to make hundreds of billions in profits if they can defeat this healthcare legislation. They can only defeat this legislation if they get us to defeat it for them by being distracted...or...

...if they can play the biggest distraction our country has ever known: RACE Wars.

That is why you have Birthers, and racist signs held by Teabaggers, racist emails being sent around by Republican hard core.

They want to defeat this, regardless of who or how many die. They need a race war to make it possible. They have, in effect, taken a page out of the playbook of the biggest crazy we have ever put in prison: Charles Manson.

Helter Skelter, Y'all

So, as they are sitting in their offices, and in their C Street refuge, rest assured, they are not trying to think of how to help their constituents; not trying to fix all or any of what is broken. They are brainstorming to to please their masters: The insurance companies, the oil companies, the war machines, and the Financial Hogs at the trough.

Somewhere, in a lonely isolated cell, sits a crazy man with a swastika carved into his forehead. His rage is still hot, and he knows he was ahead of his time. That were he free today, he would be the God of the GOP, and they would come to him for all their ideas... and he would see to it that people died, there was fear, there was terror, there was suspicion between the races.

Somewhere, in a GOP office, a Bluedog sits, confused as to whom he is supposed to serve. He is handed a playbook and told to go out and follow this script... And if there should come a time of doubt or crisis, they need only ask "WWCD?"

Playing the Crazy Card

Truth Hurts

Watching the GOP clown car crash and burn repeatedly has become a macabre event that repeats itself with ever more insane variations, daily, if not hourly.

Having nothing constructive to offer to government nor their constituencies, politicians on the Far Right went to the only deck of trump cards they had: "We are not like them. We have morals. God is on our side. Family Values. Tax breaks for the wealthy. Jesus Saved US."

They pointed to Clinton's peccadilloes as the 'shame of the nation!' and demanded his resignation. (I hear a rap beat in the background. Is that you, Michael Steele?) And it was true. Clinton's affair, was disgraceful. Not to our nation, but to himself and his marriage. They got over it. Republicans never did. That was their Clarion Call to arms.

Then came Bush. For some reason, the Right-to-Lifers fell for a man who distinguished himself by executing more prisoners than any other governor, ever. Even those who were innocent, were not allowed to get a new trial because the first one was good enough. They adored him.

So did their big bucks buddies. Every business he ever touched, he failed. His father's influence is all that ever saved him, financially. Arabs were happy to bail out Baby Bush, and gain influence in the US Government, and a friend in a CIA Chief, later VP, later President.
They loved him.

He took the nation from surplus into deep recession, all the while, cutting taxes for the wealthy, loosening the regulations that had kept the markets in balance and under control. He ignored the warnings from his own Security Advisers, (most notably, Richard Clark) and never read a Presidential Daily Briefing until after 9/11. He dismissed those who warned us of the greatest attack on our soil, ever--and the Right Wing gave him a bullhorn, a pile of smoking rubble to stand on, and called him a hero. Mission Accomplished.

The illusion was in full swing. Smoke, mirrors, even Condi Rice as an undulating assistant, kept us all from knowing the truth or daring to question, under the penalty of being called 'Traitor!', the wisdom of the White House and their League of distinguished radical idiots.

We went into wars we never would have had to enter, had the man just comprehended National Security in the first place. But the mantra was "He has kept us safe for 8 years!".

The truth is, he kept us terrified by his lies and his stupidity, for 8 years. Jesus, save us!

Having all the power was too much for the banner carriers of the Illusion to handle. Lies issued forth from the fountains of ignorance and arrogance at a rate that was hard to believe, much less sustain.

The truth started to leak out. There was the 'Wide Stance' of Larry Craig. Who pleaded guilty and then tried to plead not guilty. He said he would resign, then said he would never resign. One of the vocal critics of Clinton, himself caught in a most compromising and illegal sex scandal in a bathroom stall in a public venue.

Prior to him, Mark Foley, who should have been arrested for child molest, pursued young male pages. Not exactly the homophobic "Christian" values that are touted from the GOP on a steady basis.

Mark Foley was the exception, until "Wide Stance". Now, GOP had a problem. At least the Dems indiscretions were hetero. And the Dems never held themselves up as the Moral center of the Universe. GOP did, and does.

Now, the juggling act became a bit unwieldy. Gay, molesters, stalkers, conflicted with the hallowed image of the GOP. They could ignore the deaths, thousands and thousands of deaths, as long as women were being denied access to life saving abortions, they were happy. Life is a relative thing to the Right Wing. It only has value before first breath. After that, no value at all. Jesus Save us, all!

Still trying to present themselves and their party as the paragon of virtue, the GOP scrambled, badly, and rolled out the Palin Phenomenon. She was pretty. She could draw a crowd. She praised the shouts of of "Racist!" and "Kill HIM!" with "Bless you." Racists loved her. The rest of us saw through her rambling disconnected word trainwrecks and the election went to someone who was qualified, and history was made.

She blamed everyone else for her failures, ignore that the handprints at the scenes of the crimes were all hers. She bashed her own campaign ('I looked around and could not find one person to pray with..' indicating that the GOP were Godless?) and then whined when the campaign started bashing back. Her lies being exposed, and her alienating more people all the time, to her backwards thinking, is 'how you win elections', regardless of the fact that she has lost the election and has now quit the one job she had to finish, saying she's not a 'quitter'.

Saying one thing and doing another is exactly what the GOP has become. Only now, it shows. She IS the GOP, in a nutshell.

Senator John Ensign, R-Nevada, his tanned Marlboro Cowboy looks, expensive hairstyle, bleached smile, and wealthy family, was being groomed as a contender for 2012. He had the Good Looks the GOP was looking for. Style over substance. Smile baby, you are on.. oh dear, you had an affair? He dumped his Twitter account, made his announcement, and claimed to be the victim of an extortion plot by an unscrupulous lover and her family. (Jesus answered our prayahs! He's NOT Gay! We are saved, Martha! We are saved!)

It was about to get worse. But before it did, Governor Sanford, of South Carolina, became only the latest in the bizarre tumbles from Grace. He staged a disappearing act, on Father's Day, and we now know that he was not hiking the Appalachian trail on Naked Hiking Day, but rather indulging in the pleasure trail of Argentina. (We are saved again! He's not gay!)

Ensign was now back burner, bottom of the bird cage, so 'yesterday'. Wide Stance was tamed down to just a closeted old man who lies to his family. Foley was allowed to scamper off into oblivion.

But, almost as if there was a competition to see who could wear the Crazy Crown for the GOP, Palin jumped in to quit her job and do it because she was not a quitter. Her rambling reading of the GOP talking points scrabble board had question marks popping up like prairie dogs in the assembled media. Her answers only brought out more question marks. Mostly, she blamed the media. The next day, just to stay on the news cycle, elbowing out other contenders, she called another presser, to explain to the media why it was not her fault and why quitting is her way of succeeding. She did this wearing waders, sporting a brand new French Manicure (which is what we all do when we are going to gut fish for three days at fish camp) and with her hair and make up just perfect, (again, what we all do).

The crown secured, Ensign was almost irrelevent, Sanford's lovesick interviews were both comical and pathetic, Palin was the clear winner of the Loser of the Week title. But, apparently, she could not find anyone to pray with. She got blasted by those formerly in her camp, the ex boyfriend of her unmarried daughter, former campaign staffers, and former allies in her own party, in her own State of "Al LASK UH". Jesus Save Us!

And then, almost as if on cue, Ensign surfaces like a Salmon leaping for the bait, and here comes the letter, handwritten mind you, that is his dismissal of his mistress from his life. Bad enough that, but then it got worse. Turns out that another stalwart GOP Senator, Coburn, from Oklahoma, helped him draft it. Having your friends help you write a letter to someone you had sex with shows a lot of larger issues, flaws in the man, than anything up until this point.

Then it got worse. Turns out that after he wrote the letter, he restarted the affair. Some are painting him as a sexual predator, stalking his mistress, using his authority as her boss to engage her, repeatedly.

Then it got even worse. Turns out that Ensign, in trying to cover up this mess, had his Daddy come in and pay off the mistress! When a 51 yr. Old man, with great hair, rugged outdoor looks, bleached teeth, expensive suits, being groomed for 2012 has to have a buddy write his Dear Jane letter and his Daddy pay off his bimbo, what is left to hold up the facade?

And now, as I come to the conclusion of this piece, Palin is fishing for more excuses, her lies stinking up the place like dead fish; Ensign is sucking his thumb in a corner somewhere, being coddled by his mommy and daddy; Sanford is whimpering and pining for Argentina, trying to fall back in love with his wife; Larry Craig is secretly practicing his wide stance in public bathrooms in airports all over the nation; and Mark Foley is just graduating from his "Pray Away the Gay" classes. Heads are spinning trying to keep up with the Clown Car of GOP scandals.

The polished illusion has cracked, shattered and crumbled. Yet, hard core conservatives are continuing to mask their racism as "Teaparties", which are denying they are astroturfed, but which are clearly sponsored by the same people who sponsor the WWE mentality of FOX.

Lost in all of this is government. Hypocrites are entertaining. They can even bring down a party. But we end up with a competitive chaos that makes a lot of noise, spins wheels and deals, but at the end of the day, we still don't have Healthcare. We still have not repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell. We still have not closed Gitmo. Banks and Credit Card Companies are still practicing Usary and killing the economy that feeds it.

The GOP has, by playing the Crazy Card, distracted us from all that we, as a nation, should be doing the work on to make this a better place for our children and the children yet to come.

At the end of the day, the work is not only not finished, it has really not even begun. We need to focus people. Focus on the work that needs to be done and those who should be doing it. The rest is just distraction.

It's loud, it's noisy. It's full of lies and it is full of hate and violence. But those are not minds we can change because they don't want to change. They only want to stop us from doing the work we must do to save ourselves.

They are the minority. They are the crazy, lying, batshit nutso minority. Their only power left is the power of distraction. Let's fool them by not being tricked into failing to pay attention.

We can choose to do the important work, or just to linger over the writhing, undulating hypocrisy that is the GOP. They are as fake as their sunbed tans, bleached teeth, eye lifts. We know that, now move on.

Asking The Wrong Questions- Healthcare

There is a concerted obstructionist policy coming from the GOP and some lame-brained dems who think that everything this country does for health care should be measured against "how it will pay for itself", as if our taxes are not for helping our people.

The Healthcare Companies, the ones who have doubled and quadrupled their profits every quarter, while denying legitimate claims, and denying access to those who need it, have lobbied congress heavier than at anytime past. There are 6 healthcare lobbyists per congressman in DC.

Aside from false ads that want us to think that government health care will destroy our system and put government between us and our doctors, they also want us to think that healthcare should be made to pay for itself.

Primarily, they want us to forget that it is the bean counters and clerks that are standing between us and our doctors, and who prevent us from getting treatments and who deny legitimate claims. People suffer and die from these practices as they exist today. People go bankrupt from these practices as they exist today. People lose their homes and commit suicide from these practices as they exist today.

Who would not want to change this? Who would not want a more fair and equitable system? Employers want it. It would cut their costs dramatically. People want it as it would mean we would be able to treat illnesses before they became more serious. People could make easier decisions regarding their pregnancies and the health of their children. More children with serious health issues would be allowed to live, because the costs would not bankrupt the parents, and so if the suffering of that child was not an issue, and that should please the Lifers because now their tax dollars can go to the care and keeping of those born with multiple traumatic defects.

Insurance companies don't want it. They don't want to have to compete for a fair price for their product. They don't want to have to be held to a standard of compassion and fairness that the government would be held to. They don't want people to feel like they have a choice. They just want the money to come to them.

Health Insurance companies COULD still make a very good profit if a public option was their direct competition. They just could not make the obscene profits while denying services to those who have already paid for them. That is their problem.

Now, for the latest Straw Man the opposition to the Public Option Health Care. "How is this going to pay for itself?"

It doesn't have to. This is what we do to take care of our own. This is what we do to protect the health and safety of our own. This is what we do to protect our economy. This is what we do to protect the public at large.

No one asks how the Military is going to pay for itself. No one asks how the war is going to pay for itself. We assume both of those are to protect us, and our way of life.

Health care is no different.

But if "Paying for itself" is a criteria in Congress, let us start asking that about a lot more: About the military, the wars, the health care that the Congress receives, about the office help and about their salaries, their junkets, and a whole slew of other "costly" issues.

Now, get on it.

Outrage

When they Do it To Our People

The horrific news of Lisa Ling and Euna Lee being abducted near the border of North Korea while doing a story about North Korea was chilling. Their months of imprisonment, without contact with their families, culminating in a secret trial wherein they were found guilty of crimes against the State and sentenced to 12 years hard labor, an outrage to all Americans.

North Korea is known for its abuses and neglect of its own citizens. Known for torture and abuses of prisoners and for its slave labor camps.

The reaction of so many in our country has run the gamut from outrage, grief to the almost comically stupid, and to an extreme where some are either ready to declare war on North Korea or the other extreme of making a joke of their capture and abuse by saying "Let them do Heroic Hard Labor". That last quote was from a self-involved politically feisty Twitterer I immediately quit following. I had originally thought her "all about me" style of commenting was a joke. Silly me, she is that narcissistic.

I was not sure if I should laugh or cry when I saw so many on Twitter turning to the celebrities on Twitter to 'do something'. When they were sending pleas to Ashton Kutcher and Oprah, I was momentarily taken to that scene in "Talladaga Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby" wherein Will Ferrel's character thinks he is on fire, strips out of his racing gear and runs out on the track screaming: "Help me Jesus! Help me Oprah! Save me Tom Cruise!..."

Here we are faced with two of our own, innocent of any wrongdoing, being abducted by a brutal regime, held in secret, abused and likely tortured, given a secret trial where no one is ever found innocent... and some are screaming for celebrities to use their super powers to save them? While others apparently so self-involved, can only declare they are not worth the time?

Clearly, in the US, we are a diverse community of opinions and beliefs. Clearly, anytime it is a horrible injustice done to one of our people by another nation, it rouses some of the strongest passions in us.

Overall, our opinion of North Korea is that they are barbaric and backwards. The cries for bombings to rescue our own are among the most extreme and illogical.

I am heartened, on the other hand, by those I see speaking up for 'tough' diplomacy and not violence. There are also voices out there that point out that it is NOT the North Korean people that are doing this, but rather, a corrupt, abusive government that places no value on any human life, including that of its own citizens, many of whom must endure constant abuse from police and military if they do not show strong enough praise for the miscreant Kim Jong Il.

Clearly, bombing that country would only kill the innocent in that country.

An overwhelming feeling of helplessness, however, prevails. That is where the greatest angers well up from. That is where the radicals in our midst fill the void.

Let us, while the feelings are still fresh upon us, look at how appalled we are about the treatment of these two women. Feel your heart beat a little faster do you? Grief and sadness get shoved aside for anger and venom? Probably. It does for me, too. Anytime we hear about a bully, be it a person or a government, we get angry. We lose respect for that person, that country. Especially when the detentions are illegal, trials are secret, and sentences are torture.

Now, with that fresh and raw on our psyche, let us step back for a minute and realize that those same exact feelings are what so many in other countries feel for the US these days.

Our abuses of prisoners, torture, deviant practices against them, have enraged other nations and the people in them. People who expected more and better from us, and got instead, the monsters of unlimited sadism.

Most of the prisoners in Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, Baghram, are NOT terrorists. Yes, there are a few high profile terrorists among them, and they have been identified before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ever launched. But also, there are many who were wrongly rounded up, some identified as terrorists just so that a bounty could be gained without evidence or facts to support it. Some were turned in by rivals for territory, or jealousy among neighbors. Some were just rounded up because our troops were told to go and take males from their homes, regardless of age (one as young as 12 another as old as 90 who were rounded up as terrorists, without evidence or facts).

These people, regardless of innocence or crimes, but worse for those who are innocent, rounded up, tortured, given secret trials, and even when the judges under those extreme circumstances order their release, are held indefinitely because they have become a source of embarrassment for our nation at its worst behavior under the former Administration.

These people belong to families and communities in other nations. Those nations feel about us the way we feel about North Korea at this time. It is much easier for the radicals in the Middle East to now recruit young men and women, who are helpless against our government, our indifference, and whom they know are torturing their people. Radicals love that we have created for them, evidence that we are the monsters they say we are.

Being dismissive of their anger does nothing to make us safer in this world, nor even respected by other nations. Declaring the innocent to be guilty of terrorism makes us look too stupid to know the difference and too afraid to find out. We appear weak. We appear to resort to bullying and abusing other nations because we are afraid of everyone.

Fear was the theme for 8 years. It is still being sold in the more profoundly unenlightened puddles of conservatives who worship gibberish. It is what weakened us as a nation, both from within, and in the view of other nations. It is what made us vulnerable.

Nothing done in violence is ever done well. Yet, we acted in fear and violence, and lost our footing on the moral high ground. Still struggling to regain our standing, at home and abroad, we give far too much voice to the extremists in our own backyard. Far too much permission for them to speak on our behalf or act in ways that are horrifying to us all. Violence is used to recruit more who will act more violently. Violence is action without thought of consequences.

One of the consequences, aside from losing the respect of other nations, is our economic decline. That decline revealed yet another weakness in our system: Greed gave us economic feet of clay. We allowed the financial industry to demolish our economy, throw hard working people out of their homes, and tank our economy.

While we were being whipped into a frenzy of anger and hatred, fear and loathing at other nations, that which did us in came from within our own borders. They took advantage of our ignorance of their games and our distraction of fear and "today's terror alert level is Orange".. to rob us blind and leave us economically, stripped bare, and bleeding. They had been feeding off of us, and with 8 years of opportunity without oversight, our government too busy demanding we not question their activities, nor the activities of their friends, they deflated the economy into a recession near depression.

We appear, to other nations, to be run by bullies, ignore the suffering of our own people, neglect our children, and to illegally arrest, detain and torture whomever we please.

I am sickened by what has transpired in North Korea. I am also sickened by how much like North Korea, we have behaved towards our own people, and towards detainees illegally held in secret locations, their secret trials, torture and abuse.

I just hope that clearer heads and cooler temperaments view my country not by how our government has mistreated others, but as a nation filled with people who want and are working towards righting the wrongs. I hope they don't want to come over and bomb us because we are mistreating theirs.

I hope this is dealt with on a government to government level and that no one makes the egregious error of attacking the people of that monstrous government.

For that reason, because we need to regain our identity as a nation of decent people, we must close Guantanamo, and put a halt to all these "outsourced" secret prisons that do our dirty work, and those who make an industry of false imprisonment and torture must be put out of commission. We must free the innocent as we want our innocent to be freed.

We must lead by example in this world. Clearly, following the worst examples of despotic regimes, has rendered us more vulnerable on so many levels.

Clearly, being abusive to others has not made us stronger. It has not made us safer. It has only made our cries for Justice and fair play, hypocritical, and our outrage anemic.

Guest Post Re: "The Story of Stuff"

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.

Myth America

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.

The Color of Fear

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.