An old photo of Rhonda M. DuPont holding her son Ryan R. Peeler.

On January 19th, Rhonda DuPont, a wonderful woman that I grew up with, was brutally murdered by her own son, Ryan, in a psychotic rage, as the paranoid schizophrenia he suffers finally claimed him for good.

Murder victim’s fiance details Monday night’s events

The DuPont homicide: Is mental illness behind family slaying?

Rhonda Marie DuPont Memorial Website

Todd Gross, the affable Boston weatherman, didn’t invent the phrase, but he certainly coined it for popular use back in the fall of 1991, as three powerful weather fronts crashed as agents of true serendipity to create as he so succinctly described, “A Perfect Storm”, over the waters of the Georgia Banks to forever change the way we view causation and the sheer brutality of circumstance.  The movie, of the same name, detailing the drama of a small Glouster fishing boat’s tragic contribution to that moment in meteorological history, drove that moniker even deeper into the lexicon of our American culture, cementing forever it’s place in the language we share as members of this latest version of humanity’s endless effort to unite the globe under one homogenous authority.

A Perfect Storm.  It almost sounds noble.  As if it might be something that God would create to cleanse the earth of that which has gathered over time to the detriment of creation.  A course correction, perhaps.  A courtesy flush, as they used to say, when the stink grew to be unbearable, but there was still work to be done to clear one’s vessel of that which had become repugnant and toxic.  The heavens, bringing it all together to purge the straining increase through the combination of all that’s gathered, in one mighty release, the consequences be damned, as “look out below” becomes the mantra for all that is free to scatter to protection and shelter.  A cataclysm of continuum and malignant intent, married with environmental impact and raw circumstance. The pure justice of karma on that which neither believes, nor feels the touch of such a quaint notion, until it becomes that which passes through its dying moment.  A final regret.

History will record that the American Empire went down as spectacularly as it rose.  A Perfect Storm.  Not a slow erosion, or a gradual decline in power and influence over centuries of diminishing returns as the way of those ancient rulers of their known worlds.  Not this empire.  This revolution of human aspiration, the first attempt at large scale democracy, will be remembered as a dynamic and volatile beast, as famous for its wonderful passion as it will be infamous for it’s writhing seizures of wrath and global carnage.  The ultimate yin and yang of human freedom and self determination.  A societal manifestation of the good and the evil that resides within all who call this planet their home.

Yes.  A Perfect Storm.  A triangulation of our own construct, brought together by own our design, raining down upon our heads as testimony to the truth that no persistent evil can survive the balancing of the scales in this or any other world. That God’s will is the natural order of cause and effect.  True justice as the going around that comes around. No escape from that which has been carelessly and negligently set into motion.  This trinity of destruction, our own creation, as yet again, the powerful are emptied through their own belligerence, their own willful disregard for the threat that God has seen fit to demonstrate to His people since the dawn of civilization itself.

Swirling within one front we have the impending economic disaster.  400 billion dollars in vapor currency is set to flood our economy in the weeks and months ahead.  This, combined with the previous hundreds of billions of vapor currency, sent into our precarious wealth imbalance to offset the natural response to wholesale disregard for the value of that which is acquired verses that which is applied to acquisition, will send all values to their respective corners to await an arbitration that has not been called to congress, and will – in all likelihood – never be called together as those, psychologically crippled by the reckless irresponsibility and greed that’s dominated the last several decades of this global shell-game of financial/market management, reflexively push for yet another spin of the wheel.

It has finally come to that inevitable moment when all these players – circling the center as in a children’s game where salvation stares each one in the face as a progressively dwindling prospect – must find a seat, even though, through the years, more and more seats have been yanked as this moment has been delayed far beyond any reasonable culmination point.  Each contestant knows exactly what lies ahead, and yet, is as psychologically incapable of reaching for that seat and the security if offers as the greedy monkey caught by its own hand in the cookie jar, refusing to accept its freedom over the cost of a released cookie.

And so they circle and sweat.  Watching each other to see who will break for safety first, initiating the collapse of this game they’ve been locked within since any of them can remember.  This rising pressure is only one front, bearing down on a point of rendezvous with history itself.

A second front contains decades of building disdain within the global community for a frighteningly powerful child, who has yet to learn the lesson of perspective and context that only a free fall from prominence can teach one so arrogant and willfully ignorant.  Each member of this international collective has endured its own cataclysmic decline, with some – such as Italy – more wrenching than others.  Only this flagrant, relentlessly demanding infant has yet to feel the sting of collapse and ruin, followed by the long harrowing climb to a much lower platform from which to settle itself into the hierarchy of nations, to find its own version of survival in a world of competition and inevitable elimination for all that exists.  None of which holds God’s favor or blessing, regardless of the marketing collateral.

All around this screaming child, the nations smile to one another as they watch the coming storm, and consider their own contribution to this disaster.  After all, one nation’s fall is another nation’s ascension.  The natural order of a competitive environment.  Certainly nothing to abhor, or be ashamed of.  Certainly nothing that this terrible brat wouldn’t do, or hasn’t done, to any one of them if given the opportunity.  This universal disregard for the survival of the newest and largest of empires, by the world which allows the existence of this empire, is surely a powerful front in this triad of impending catastrophe.  In fact, the migration from the dollar, in all corners of the financial universe, and the ascension of the Euro as a stable and welcome currency, is strong evidence of this preparation for what our planet sees as a coming fall equal to that of Rome.  No dark ages for this modern world.  Not beyond the borders to the United Sates, at any rate.  Not on the heels of this fall.  In fact, the world is well prepared for this fall, and seems to be in anticipation of it’s coming at long last.

The third, and most destructive front, the storm that will give this catastrophe the epic proportions that befit the fall of such a powerful global entity, is the sheer malignancy of selfishness, frustration, hatred and individual isolation of each member within the culture itself.  Initiated, nurtured, and focused by the corporate owned and directed politics for the immediate benefit of those wishing to capitalize on the moment at the cost of the future of this society, this societal programming effort has gone on for generations, creating a culture of anti-social rejectionism disguised as individualism that has served the needs of those whose only skill involves pitting us against each other for the profit of those who, through their own minor conspiracies, have become mighty in our collective separation.  After all, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.  A small conspiracy in a society incapable of communion, is a majority, and therefor a ruling majority, since no other majority is possible.

As the two other fronts come together over this universal and stationary environmental condition, the impact of the two will launch this from the inert potential it’s always been and give it the dynamic life that will metastasize the three as a destructive force that the modern world has never seen.  Each front – as its own potential – manageable, survivable.  Combined, a perfect storm of engineered calamity, a detonation of unfathomable impact on those within the kill-zone.

The economic collapse, surely triggering the suspicions, the resentments, the hatreds, programmed into the psyches of the entire society through generations of the celebration of the smallest unit of community possible – the nuclear family – and the rejection of community as an indication of individual weakness and irresponsibility.  What coming-together could ever be possible?  Even when that unity would be the only means of societal survival.  The damage has already been done.  The army of one has always been the looming destruction of the American Experiment.  The strength of the individual has never been, and will never be, the power needed to ensure the survival of this species.  The building isolation, nurtured by advances in technology and the establishment of product-centric alliances within the personality of the modern American, has sealed the fate of this society.

When the economic collapse strikes, there will be nowhere for each member of this fractured culture to turn.  No community.  No extended family.  Nothing of common origin or continuum.  Nothing to focus on but raw survival of self to the level of all others as enemies of that sense of survival.  Duty, honor, community, all notions of the intellect – marketing slogans, generated by a government/industry collaboration that has betrayed the individual, releasing that individual from the bonds of those lofty ideals.  As if such ideals ever actually existed at all in a society where true interdependence was anathema to what it meant to be a Real American.

Alliances, while formed for expediency and strength, would have no lasting quality, replaced by the next better deal, as day turns into week and week turns into month and month into year.  And year into generation.  You see, as true Americans, we only imagine the fall as occurring, but we never seem to imagine that we’ll still exist beyond that fall.  As if the movie will end, and we’ll be allowed to leave our seats and return to our homes, glad that we don’t have to actually deal with the ramifications of such a disaster.  No Balkanization of the once-united states. No fracture of region into principality. No rise of religious or sectarian division within the larger whole, with strongmen and their militias establishing their own rule of law for pockets of civilization within a nation at war with itself on every conceivable front.

When the dollar becomes worthless in the global community, what will it be worth to us?  When we have no currency, what will anything be worth?  What will we use to determine the cost of living, and who will provide us with that currency?  What office building will be the source of our daily devotion, when no company has the answer to our question of “what do we do now?”

And all the while, the global community looks at our terror, and slowly shakes its head.  It was coming, and they knew it was coming.  They can now see what we’ve made of its arrival, and who would ever step in to restore the order?  Our entire military can’t restore order in Iraq.  What army could ever restore order in a shattered America?  When New Orleans fell down, what police department precinct was capable of protecting its citizenry?  What military descended upon the streets to restore order before the losses became intolerable?  What food and water prevented widespread destruction and criminality?

And this was one city, surrounded by a perfectly functioning national economy and social structure.  Imagine a complete economic collapse, trillions lost in the devastation, anger and resentment, fueled by the Internet and media’s exposure of the sins of a ruthless cabal between government and industry to ravage the lives of the average citizen.  The demagoguery, as the politics of fear and hatred is once again offered as common sense and reasonable discourse, pouring gasoline on the fires that threaten to consume us all. The cries for patience and humanity spun as weakness and socialism to a population taught to hate community and sharing as the vain temptations of Satan’s own religion of dependence.

What nation would ever bother to save us from ourselves?

A Perfect Storm.  Three massive fronts converging to create that which is greater than the sum of its parts.  Yes, it’s coming, and we’ll be witness to it.

So what comes after this perfect storm?  In all likelihood, preparations have already begun for that dramatic shift in societal structure.  Yes, there will still be a US military, even if it receives orders to stand back initially to allow us to eat each other.  Yes, there will still be international corporations and markets.  Yes, there will still be a global economy.  Yes, there will still be an international banking system.  And yes, there will still be the very same powerful people who rule all of these, as they do even now.  The world will not change for these people.  These people own this world, and they decide how this world will operate.  Their world will remain as it’s always been.  It is our world – the world within our continental borders – that will change.

Once the smoke has cleared, it will be determined what is salvageable and what is not.  It will be determined what is needed to eliminate the spontaneous expressions of social order that have sprung up here and there across the landscape.  It will be determined who, among the survivors, has demonstrated a capacity for adherence to a new, and very different, societal requirement – and more importantly, who hasn’t.  It will then be determined how to move forward with the new United States of America, and the establishment of that structure as imposed by sheer brutal force for the overall good of the nation itself.  For its very survival.

And it will be welcomed by those of us that are still around to witness it, as if it were the long awaited return of the Christ to grant one thousand years of peace and justice to a grateful world exhausted by the violence and immediate hell of an Armageddon of hatred, ignorance and self-serving expediency.  It will be the anticipated result of generations of social programming – the greatest and most powerful authoritarian state the world has ever known, as the ultimate prize – for those with the vision, and patience, to allow us to destroy our one and only chance at self determination.

It will then be on to the future of mankind.

I have absolutely nothing to add to this. Enjoy this moment in political history.

In 1960, no one knew that Jack Kennedy would someday be seen as John F. Kennedy. They knew he was charismatic and capable as a politician, but that’s all they knew. They, who were there at the time, now know better who that tall skinny Senator was in those early days of the decade of our nation’s greatest changes. It took the loss of that leader for the realization of who and what he was to be finally revealed for all time. As they say, you never know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.

This man, Barack Obama, is clearly a generational gift to our nation, and there may not come another like him. At this moment, he is exactly what we need. The unique challenges we face have an extremely conplex suite of causes, and require an entirely new manner of approach to their resolution. The standard political approach will not work this time around. The standard issue politician will not be enough this time around. This is a new and much more malignant moment that we face as these challenges threaten to bring us all down together.

When this nation has been severely challenged, we’ve always been fortunate to have a president that was equal to the crisis. In the 1860s, we were served by Abraham Lincoln, who lied and swindled his way to keeping us as one nation, against our own will as a shattered society. In the 1930s and 40s, FDR did what he had to do to keep us looking for ways to prevent our nation from being sucked into the global vortex that consumed Germany, Italy, China, and continued to devour Russia. It involved controversial measures, but obviously, they were the difference between our nation collapsing into anarchy, becoming a Fascist regime, or following much of the world into the black hole of a faux-Socialistic totalitarianism. When the USSR challenged our resolve, in the fall of 1962, if it had been Richard Nixon in that war room, I think we all have to wonder if he would have had the cool, clear presence of mind – as well as the political courage – to refuse to pull a John Wayne maneuver and set off a full scale nuclear exchange, in direct opposition to every single advisor and military expert on his staff.

Once again, we’re at one of those crisis moments, and we’re being offered a man with a very different approach to how we address our issues as a nation. Just as Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy before him, Barack Obama makes the establishment extremely nervous. Just as those previous presidents, Obama will likely upset that establishment even further with the choices he’d make as president. but, very likely, just as Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy, Barack Obama may just possibly be the one man we need for the very specific job that needs to be done to pull us out of this crisis. Maybe by teaching us how to pull together – finally – as a nation, instead of as warring coalitions of special interests. This time, what may be needed is for us to learn how to actually be one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The alternative may be a complete fracture of our entire society as each group blames the other for what is clearly going to be a rough ride in the years to come. It doesn’t take a prophet to see how those fractures will develop, and how they will affect our ability to carry on as people stuck on the same rock together.

Our only hope is to turn away from the policies and politics of the last several decades. As a first step, we need to find the courage to turn away from the people who have inspired the destructive views and ideologies that have brought these dangerous policies and politics to the level of national discourse. If not, then we’ll have that same realization of who Barack Obama was and what he brought to the table that our parents and grandparents had when John Kennedy was taken from them, leaving them to the confusions and turmoil of the 60’s.

This time, however, it won’t be merely about the length of hair, the color of clothes, the music or even the social unrest brought by college students and civil rights activists. This time, it will be the collapse of our entire society, and the emergence of whatever it is that will replace it.

We need to get deadly serious here. No more games. No more cheap politics. This is survival at its most basic level, and we need a very new way of reacting to each other if we are to achieve this survival. The time has run out on us, and this is our last chance to focus on what is required for us to come out of this spiral.

If we actually love our children, and their children, we have no other choice but to reject the foolishness of divisive politics. This is our very last chance.

I got this spam email today from one of my GOP loving pals. It was kind of nostalgic in how it shilled the 2004 GOP talking points as if the last few years had never happened. I don’t believe that anyone actually still agrees with this laundry list of assertions, but I felt like putting them all into 2008 perspective. Sort of a “let’s look at where we are now” kind of thing.

Good Read and Think About it! Pass it on, won’t you?

For those of us who spent time in the military, believe in our military and support the men and women of our military, read on…………. ~
John Glenn (DEMOCRAT) said this —– It should make you think a little:

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the
month of January. That’s just one American city,
about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq .

When Detroit gets to a point where 39 armed police officers – isolated from attack by the citizenry by a heavily defended “Green Zone” when not on heavily armed patrol – are killed each month, while thousands of civilians are being taken off the streets each month in body bags, then you can equate the two situations. Or don’t you people think that Iraqis are human beings? This stat just makes you look like either a complete liar or a complete idiot.

When some claim that President Bush shouldn’t
have started this war, state the following:

FDR (DEMOCRAT) led us into World War II.

Germany never attacked us ; Japan did.
>From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 112,500 per year.

Saddam was not invading the entire Middle East and was not conducting bombing raids on our closest allies. Sadddam wasn’t capable of putting two fighter planes into the air, let alone massing troops. He had no military to speak of, and we already had him pinned down as much as any nation has ever had any other nation pinned down – and this was the case for over 10 years before Bush suddenly saw a danger in Iraq. On the other hand, Hitler had invaded and occupied nearly all of Europe, was an ally or Japan and, to be historically accurate about it all, GERMANY DECLARED WAR ON US!!!! Again, your email is making you look like a moron.

Truman (DEMOCRAT) finished that war and started one in Korea
North Korea never attacked us
>From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy (DEMOCRAT) started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.

Johnson (DEMOCRAT) turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost .
an average of 5,800 per year.

These were stupid wars of choice, and no better than this Iraq debacle. Except for the fact that this one is costing us on the average of 30,000 dollars per second. Money that we are presently borrowing from China, who can’t wait to dump the dollar – and let us crash as a result – in about 2 months from now. Yeah, very similar.

Clinton (DEMOCRAT) went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.

We had one Air Force pilot captured and roughed up a bit before being released. Also, the Bosnian conflict involved UN forces, Those were the troops with the baby-blue helmets. Were you asleep during all of this, or are you just trying to prove how foolish you can be with these spams?

He was offered Osama bin Laden’s head on a platter three
times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on
multiple occasions.

Remember “Wag the Dog”? Your Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott threatened Clinton with additional articles of impeachment based on abuse of power if he sent missiles into Afghanistan when they received the “go” to hit Osama during two of those “silver platter” presentations. They were assured by their Constitutional law partners that they could make the charges stick by linking the attack to an effort to distract the national media with a “war”, and take the building fever off the Lewinski matter. Look it up. A lot of that 9/11 blood is on the hands of the people who were rabid to take down the Clinton presidency during that period of time. I guess you were asleep during that period of time as well.

In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush
has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled
al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya , Iran , and, North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people. And the Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking.

um…….have you looked at a news paper lately?

The Taliban has resurrected in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda is as strong, today, as it was in 2001 – only more widespread and harder to pin down, since gaining in world-wide popularity due to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, North Korea HAS THE BOMB and got it while Bush screwed around with a cripple Iraq, and since the invasion of Iraq, Bush’s Iraq policy has been directly responsible for over 600,000 Iraqi deaths.

Oh, and John McCain has suggested that we’ll have troops actively patrolling Iraqi streets for the next 100 years. I don’t think we’ve ever had a 100 year war before. GW Bush has declared that the War on Terror will be a “generational war”. Generations last 40 years, by general definition. We’ve never had a 40 year war either. Having a 100 year Iraq war, and a 40 year Terror war is not something that we can afford. Our military won’t survive it unless we enact a draft. Then, you folks can kiss your little wars goodbye. As well as your GOP political party. Forever. Remember the late 60’s? Now, consider that those folks didn’t have the Internet to help them organize into super coalitions. Is any of this becoming clearer to you?

But Wait, There’s more…

You sure you want to continue this?

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno (DEMOCRAT)
to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51-day operation..

If by us “taking Iraq”, you mean “Iraq’s military taking off their uniforms and blending in with the civilian population and beginning a 5 year long insurgency that has no end in sight”, then yes, they accomplished that in less time than it took Janet Reno to screw up the Branch Davidian debacle.

Ever hear of the term “that dog finally caught a car”? Well, it refers to a dog that chase cars, finally “catching” one. It describes what happens when a loudmouth finds someone to take him up on his big talk and cleans his clock. Three legged dogs and dead dogs are the kinds of dogs that have caught cars. We caught a car in Iraq. We’re flat broke, and still up to our asses in Iraqis. Our entire economy is crippled and there’s no end in sight for what we’ve put ourselves on the hook for. Our military doesn’t even have a definition for success in Iraq. The definition supplied by our politicians is dependent upon the Iraqis themselves, and they have no interest in that definition.

The Iraqi leaders also have no hurry to fulfill our requirements of them. They’ll just do what we did to the USSR. They’ll let us spend ourselves into an economic collapse. Then, they know, we’ll have to leave. Then they’ll do what they have planned for themselves already, and without our meddling. We think in terms of months and years. They think it terms of decades and centuries. We can’t outlast them. They can just sit there. They’re home already. Iraq’s leaders don’t care how many Iraqi civilians die in the meantime. They know that all they have to do is stall, and we’ll either leave through political upheaval in our society, or we’ll leave because we can fund this foolishness anymore. Either way, we’ll leave and they know it.

We’ve been looking for evidence for chemical weapons
in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton (DEMOCRAT) to find
the Rose Law Firm billing records.

um…..news flash!!!!

There were no WMDs in Iraq. Read the government’s own statements on it.

Bush admits that there weren’t any WMDs to find in Iraq. Everyone knows that there were no chemical, nuclear, or biological WMDs in Iraq when we invaded. We’ve been in every spider-hole in the entire nation, and they were just not there. My son-in-law has this same idiotic notion about WMDs in Iraq. What the hell are you people seeing that no one else on earth is seeing? And if you have some real information about WMDs then why aren’t you putting out press releases with this proof you have? Hell, if it’s okay to compromise CIA assets and destroy Interpol Intel relationships in order to improve the war’s marketing effort, then it should be okay to show us the proof that there were WMDs in Iraq when we invaded the place.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the
Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard
than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his
Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took
to count the votes in Florida !!!

Again, it’s easy to get stuck in quicksand. The real challenge is in getting out of the quicksand once you get stuck in it. We didn’t “take” Iraq. We got inhaled by Iraq. Kind of like how Jonah didn’t “take” the whale when he invaded the thing’s belly. We didn’t defeat Saddam’s army any more than we’ve defeated Iraq’s insurgency. In fact, Saddam’s army IS Iraq’s insurgency. You folks are just to embarrassed to admit it.

Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB !
The Military morale is high!

The biased media hopes we are too ignorant
to realize the facts

So far, I’ve only seen a bizarre presentation of foolishness that can be dismissed as being stuff that some people actually believed 3 years ago, but that no one believes anymore. This email’s been limping around the Internet since 2004, when it became clear that no WMDs would be found in Iraq. It hasn’t even been updated.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you are reading it in English thank a Veteran.

I’m a veteran of 8 years in the military. I refuse to take credit for an English version of this trash. If you can read this in English, and you still believe any of it, then you need to take a good look at the kind of crap that you’re limiting your reading to. Reading words, and comprehending words as they gather together into sentences, and gaining from what those sentences represent as ideas, facts, and truth, are completely different activities, requiring different levels of intellectual capacity, effort and honesty.

I’ll admit that Clinton and Johnson and Kennedy and Carter were flawed presidents, and I’ll accept that each man had his limitations as a leader, but just because these men failed in certain areas of their presidencies, I won’t excuse Bush and Cheney for lying to us all about the threat of Iraq so that their corporate bosses could make hundreds of billions off our being stranded in that sand pit. There’s a difference between being flawed and being flat out criminal.

It might not be a bad idea to keep this circulating.

This email spam is beneath you. Seriously. The only reason I replied to it at all is because I needed a blog post for today, and you’re it. This should make some of my readers chuckle. It’s kind of quaint in it’s own way. Like a short trip back a few years when folks could pretend that the economy was going to survive, and people still believed that the Iraq WMD stuff, and other obvious lies of the Bush Administration, being exposed was going to result in criminal prosecutions for the guilty parties.

Now, everyone knows better, and there’s a general malaise that’s settled over the population. Kind of like what happens when the condemned place their heads into the Guillotine and await the short drop of the blade. That dull look of acceptance that ends up being the expression on the face as the head bounces around the basket. Just a quiet, stunned resignation, with the hysterical chatter of paid pundits blending into a white noise that fights for dominance with the steady hum of irresolvable stress and despair that fills the ears of the average American watching it all come down around them.

This email, and the stuff it suggests, is hopelessly dated. I wouldn’t send it out again. All it does now is piss people off, and remind them why it’s time to get rid of the kind of people who pushed this crap on us in the first place.

So, I actually took a few days off from the political stuff to delve into my other hobby. Playing music in nightclubs. I love that part of my life, and I’m glad I didn’t “grow out of it”, making it something I miss. I still get to jump up there and make way too much noise for small money and tips.

It’s good to be back at my keyboard though. It seems like there’s been some noise being made out on the DNC campaign trail while I was busy. Something about a fire and brimstone preacher pissing off the white folks with some super-hated rhetoric from a few years back. A preacher who Barack Obama’s church congregation hired and didn’t fire for getting a bit worked up after 9/11 and a few other instances. And apparently Barack had the audacity to allow this fire-brand to do the nuptials for his wedding to the Mrs., as if there’d be any possible way to NOT allow him to perform the ceremony without directly insulting the man , as well as the entire church.

Sure, Barack is cool, but no one is that cool. Especially in an Evangelical congregation, which I spent my own years a member of when I was stationed in the Air Force at Griffiss AFB in Rome, NY. If you’re a member of one of these families, they can become as dysfunctional as any family, but that doesn’t give any member the go-ahead to get all “high and mighty” with any other member. Unless the elders get involved and make the official determination concerning the sins of that member. That’s just how it goes in these kinds of congregations. One thing is for sure. You definitely don’t attack the preacher if that preacher is doing his job. Not if you want to stay in good standing with that congregation and the folks you’ve grown to love and trust in that group of people.

I had to explain to my wife, who is Catholic, that in an Evangelical congregation, the preacher is NOT the leader of the congregation, and often has to be reigned in by the congregation’s elders (who actually run the congregation) due to sermons every now and then. The preacher’s job is to get asses into seats and inspire those folks to open their wallets when the basket comes around. He usually doesn’t even teach Sunday school. The elders choose the teachers, they choose the fundamental slant on the biblical tenets that the congregation is going to accept, they hire (and fire) the preacher, and they deal with all matters concerning the members of the congregation.

The elders rule the roost. They consist of a small group of older men, who have raised a family of believing children to adulthood, and whose adult children are still believing members of either that congregation or an associated congregation. They’re chosen by the congregation to be elders due to this display of even temperament, judgment, and focus on the congregation as life-long heads of households that have stayed stable and true to the faith of the congregation. Very simple. Non-Evangelicals, often, don’t understand how this works, and see the preacher as the leader of the flock. That only happens in dysfunctional Evangelical congregations, and in non-Evangelical congregations.

This particular preacher, who is either retired now or semi-retired, has apparently been very popular over the years due to his ability to get folks to show up and keep showing up. This Chicago congregation, from what I’ve read, is where most of the prominent local political movers and shakers of Chicago go to church, which would be why Barack Obama would never leave it over one or two rogue sermons throughout the last 20 years or so. The issue would be that if he really wanted to make a difference in a community (which is what Obama came back to Chicago to accomplish) then he’d have to join the folks he’d be dealing with at some level. The safest level to join them would be through their shared church congregation.

It’s like joining the Elk’s Lodge or Kawanis Club if you want a leg-up in local business. I can’t imagine a guy, who is trying to organize local businesses, politicians, and community leaders, leaving the most prominent Evangelical congregation in the city for any reason whatsoever. Especially over a periodic sermon, here and there, where the preacher went off and got out of line with a couple statements concerning social issues that impact the local minority community. Especially if Obama knows that the folks he’s got to work with probably agree with everything the preacher is saying.

You don’t get anything done by being super sensitive to the words of every person you have to try and work things out with for the benefit of the people who are depending on you to improve their lot in life. That preacher – by all accounts – has had significant impact in the local community where Barack spent years as a community organizer. Same thing with that real estate developer guy that’s on trial in Chicago right now. Both men had the power to shut this young skinny lawyer down in a heartbeat and prevent him from getting anything accomplished for the people of that community, if they decided that he thought he was “better” than them.

Abraham Lincoln was considered the most two-faced guy of his political era, but he lied for the people he served, not for the people he was forced to deal with. I see that same quality in Barack Obama. Not every person you deal with in life is a high quality individual, but that doesn’t prevent them from being a person that you’ll be forced to work with if you have important work to do. In fact, in every important work that there is, there are really lousy people who are key to getting that important work done. A successful person knows how to work with them, and even befriend them, without becoming like them.

I don’t have an issue with what Barack’s preacher says. I’m not voting for Barack’s preacher. Barack’s preacher has his own view of the world, and it’s not required that Barack agree with that secular view of the world for him to agree with the man’s spiritual view of the relationship between God and man. If anything, a healthy separation between a politician and the church he or she attends is what we need right now. Even Jesus said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s”, and he wasn’t just discussing money.

This preacher appears to be from the 1960’s school of social progress via the pulpit. Not unlike a lot of the white Evangelical super-church preachers that present a GOP approved gospel of tax-cuts and inflated defense spending to their faithful hordes before marching them all down to the local election precincts for their God-directed duty of pulling the lever for the Republican candidate of their choice. Nothing different with this preacher than with those preachers. Except, maybe, the target of his outrage.

Then again, it’s hard for a man who sees his flock being decimated by the policies of a racist agenda to actively shill for that agenda on Sunday morning. Or to even allow that agenda to go unchallenged when he feels it to be necessary. He is speaking in God’s house, in his way of seeing things, and has that responsibility to be as honest in how he sees it all as he can be. In short, you won’t see a man with these kinds of community ties, to this kind of community, preaching the gospel of cutting social services, the moral imperative of a forward leaning military diplomatic strategy, the scriptural basis for God-approved pre-emptive invasions, or the ever-popular faith-brings-wealth theology. That kind of Christianity is for the suburbs, where folks can pretend that poverty is only the result of bad choices and laziness.

As if Jesus’ ministry was all about telling poor people to get off their lazy asses and get a job.

Ugh

Don’t get me started on that today.

Okay, so Barack Obama’s preacher said some messed up sentences over the decades that he’s been preaching. I remember when Ronald Reagan said that one clever quip while testing a microphone, “I’ve just signed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes.” I actually thought that was funny as hell, when I heard it. The Soviets didn’t think so, but since they don’t vote in our elections, Reagan went on to win easily. Even after casually suggesting global nuclear holocaust over a live microphone to a room full of media. Seems kind of stunning, given the reaction to Barack’s preacher’s words lately.

Maybe if Reagan’s minister had been the one who joked about nuking the USSR instead? Maybe Jimmy Carter would’ve kicked his ass back to California if the minister had said that line instead of it being the guy who actually ended up with his finger on the button? Then again, Jimmy Carter was a Baptist Sunday school teacher back then, and the Evangelicals hadn’t mounted their invasion of the state houses yet. Ministers and preachers didn’t have that kind of political power at the time. Their words didn’t affect elections back then like they do now. Apparently, no one’s words affected elections back then like they do now. Not even the candidates’ words.

It’s times like these that it becomes really clear just how much crazier this country has become in such a relatively short span of time. I can’t even imagine this place in another 28 years.

It’s been a hell of a couple weeks for lies and the liars that tell those lies. With all the veiled and not-so-veiled lies about Barack Obama’s fitness for the presidency, to the man’s choice of gods to focus his devotion to, to who approved what for whose surrogate to toss out into the sewer of public discourse, to ex-NY Governor Eliot Spitzer and his lies to the woman he married, one might begin to get the impression that the Democratic Party couldn’t get its moral compass to center on true north if the future of mankind depended on it.

Which it just might.

I’ve even gotten sucked up into the vortex of it all, as it’s swirled and spun around me. The pull is strong, and I’m as much a sucker for controversy as anyone. In fact, I tend to get even more emotionally involved in it all that some. I don’t know. Maybe I need yet another hobby in my life?

Today, however, I woke up and had a quiet moment to think about larger issues that are affecting this nation that I love. Really big issues. The kinds of problems that many of us tend to take our minds off when it becomes clear that we don’t have any ideas that might be helpful in addressing these problems. After all, what good is dwelling on an intractable problem? It reminds me of the moments when the inevitability of my own physical mortality becomes clear and perfectly defined. Also not anything to dwell on for long, since there’s no solution to that one either. And yet, there are those moments when the largest issues have their effect, and this morning, I sat with some of them and gave them the time they richly deserve.

Here are a few of them, and what conclusions we came to as we got to know each other a little. They are all related to one another, and some seem to overlap in impact and on many of the same people in our society. They all have one other common bond. They are the direct results of a series of huge and unforgivable lies that have been told, are still being told, and are morphing into newer and more malignant versions of the same kind of lies, in the same manner than viruses and bacteria graduate in resistance and resilience when confronted by our efforts to thwart their effect.

I don’t really believe that we’re capable of solving these enormous problems, and I feel that the reason is because the lies that have allowed these problems to develop and exist are too deeply embedded into the personality of the American citizen, having become truth through the willing acceptance by the vast majority. If I suspected that there was actually a willingness to entertain a moment of alternative perspective, then I’d be optimistic about these issues being solved one day. Tragically, there is no indication of that willingness to allow even a moment to consider such a change in view on these issues. Therefore, it’s clear that – like a terminal patient enduring devastating treatment in a vain effort to add extra days of life – this nation we love will linger until it can linger no more. Never to become robust and healthy again, as it lives out the remainder of its time in frustration and painful misery. The victim of its own body turned against it.

These are a few of the intractable issues we face, and the lies that drove these malignancies well beyond our ability to ever survive their extraction.

1. We’re dead broke as a nation. In debt well beyond our ability to ever recover. Even in “budget surplus” we drown in debt as a nation. We will never recover from this debt.

The lie at the base of this problem involves the private British bank we call The Federal Reserve. Most people actually think we issue our own currency as a sovereign nation. This is what we’re led to believe, and this is the lie that will keep us in debt forever. The currency we use, the dollar, is loaned to us from The Federal Reserve, which is neither “federal” or our “reserve”. What it is, is a privately owned bank that loans us money, and when I say it loans us money, what I mean is that it forces us to use the money it prints for all our transactions, and then it charges us interest for each dollar we use. The lie is that we actually own that dollar. We don’t. We borrow that dollar, and immediately owe money to that bank as soon as we take possession of that dollar.

You know that thing they call the “Prime Interest Rate”? Do you know what that actually is? That is the rate that this private British bank is charging the US government (at that specific moment) for every dollar that exists in circulation. As in, every dollar in use in the entire US economy. And, to pay this insanely massive debt off, we can only use (yes, that’s right) dollars we borrow from this British bank, as money. So, that means that to be able to pay off the many, many trillions of dollars we owe this bank, we can only use the many, many trillions of dollars from this same bank, at the same interest rate, as money to pay off the…oh, forget it. If you haven’t figured out that it’s completely impossible by now, then I can’t help you with any more analogies or descriptions.

The bottom line is that it has been engineered to be impossible for this nation to ever be free of enormous debt. You can thank Woodrow Wilson for signing that little arrangement into law. Ever wonder why he was elected president after only two short years in public office of any kind? Well, there’s your answer.

2. We’ll never win the War on Terror. It’s a generational war, and will only become more and more expensive and expansive.

So, here’s the lie behind this boondoggle. I’ll try an analogy that is absolutely appropriate, and nearly identical. Some years back, this one large, powerful nation had a handful of companies that were making a killing off this 3rd world backwater that they’d gotten their hands on. The place was pretty rough, and the residence were easily made dependent on the modern products of these companies, and on the protection of this large nation that worked hand-in-glove with these companies. This 3rd world nation had tons of natural resources that the larger nation didn’t have, and that these companies needed to maintain their competitive edge in the world market. The labor was cheap, and the cost of these resources was – well, let’s just say that the large powerful nation made sure that the companies didn’t suffer over the price of either the materials or labor. Hell, the 3rd world country was pretty much owned by this larger, more powerful nation.

After a while, some of the locals began to get frustrated with this obviously one-sided arrangement and pushed to have a new arrangement with the companies and this “parent” nation. After all, the 3rd world nation and its people deserved better than they were getting. Especially since these companies were cleaning up in profits from the work and vital resources that they were basically stealing from these hapless folks. Well, that wasn’t well received, and so the locals began causing problems for these companies. Protests at first, but then after a little bit, violence erupted and terrorism began to spread throughout the regions where these companies had plants and shipping facilities.

The large nation sent troops to shut down these insurgents, and the moral outrage against these acts of terrorism was echoed in the mainstream media of every society in the world aligned with the “parent” nation. This insurgency went on for years until the whole thing finally exploded into full scale war, with a large percentage of the 3rd world nation ripping free to directly take on the dominance of the companies and the “parent” nation. The blood spilled across this once peaceful land, with brother against brother, and countryman against countryman, as each person chose their side, and lived with the consequences of that decision. No front in the war, as anyone who chose the insurgency became an unlawful enemy combatant in the legal definition of the nation that had been the foundation of law and justice in this relatively primitive outpost of manufacturing and production. The rules of war did not apply to these insurgents or those who provided aid and comfort to them.

Sounds pretty familiar if we look to the Middle East and SE Asia, where terrorism is bubbling into flashes of full scale insurrection among the local people against the US, and the companies it protects in these 3rd world nations. The scenario above actually happened, but it happened over 200 years ago. The nation that emerged from this terrorist insurgency is the United States of America.

What we are fighting in this War on Terror, is the inevitable insurgency against the domination of US backed corporations as they move into the 3rd world and take advantage of cheap labor, free reign to pollute and reek havoc on local environments, and devastate the cultures of many of these very old and extremely conservative societies. This “terrorism” issue didn’t exist in SE Asia until our manufacturing centers moved there and took over the local areas. Al Qaeda didn’t exist until these corporations introduced a need for an Al Qaeda as a defense against the kind of devastation that these companies have been forbidden to inflict on our society – forcing them to relocate to these 3rd world backwaters in the first place.

Issues like OSHA, and EPA regulations. Healthcare and a minimum wage for workers. These are the reasons why American corporations have moved to these geographic outposts to build their production centers. These are also the reasons why Al Qaeda, and whatever other terror groups that exist beneath our media radar, flourish in these parts of the world. This is also why radical Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in these parts of the world.

We, as the United States of America, aren’t in a generational war against “Radical Islamic Extremism” because that half of the world has suddenly decided that it’s had enough of our “freedom”. It’s because the 3rd world has had enough to being exploited by capitalist assholes, and isn’t afraid to let a little blood spill over it. And as usual, our sons and daughters are being sent to fight the battles that Corporate America has picked against the world, but doesn’t want to have to pay to fight for itself.

The worst part of this lie is that we are actually defending these corporate jerks’ ability to take our jobs and ship them overseas to 3rd world countries that are tired of being savaged by these companies. Sure, they want jobs there, but not on the terms that these idiots have established. Believe me, no one wants to work all day for a couple bucks, only to have to pay those couple of bucks to the same company for the meager staple of life that have been virtually eliminated from their own local economy by these huge multi-national companies and their corporate partners. Do you like when Wal-mart moves in and wipes out the local business infrastructure of your town? Imagine that on a much larger scale, and you get an idea of what we’re doing to these societies. It’s no wonder the locals are fighting back.

3. We’ll never see a time when it will be “safe” to leave Iraq.

The lie here is that we need a stable Iraq in order to be safe as a nation. Iraq has never, ever, been a threat to the US. If it were located 5,000 miles closer, it still wouldn’t be a threat to the US. Even if Al Qaeda set up a super training facility in the middle of Bahgdad, it still wouldn’t be a threat to the US. In fact, if Al Qaeda actually did set up shop in Iraq, it’d make eliminating it as easy as lining up a few GPS guided missiles from off shore. No planes needed in this one. Just send in a flock of ACMs and kiss every one of those little scraggly beards goodbye.

Maybe I need to apply for the job of running our War on Terror? Or someone else with a 10 yr old capacity for obvious strategy.

C’mon, “fighting them there, so we won’t have to fight them here,” does anyone really believe that nonsense? If our troops are there, and there are such things as boats and planes and cars and ways of getting from there to here, then why would any reasonable, or even sane, terrorist be rooted there, instead of coming here where our troops aren’t? Especially terrorists, who don’t (as a rule) engage military forces as a general strategy or tactic.

In other words, what the hell happened to these “terrorists” that they lost the singular ability to be terrorists, and have since 9/11 become hopelessly mired in this confined space in Iraq, where they can’t hope to actually win anything by engaging our troops. I can’t imagine that any of these “masterminds” actually believes that we’ll allow them to set up shop in Iraq, even if we pull our troops out. It’s not like we let Saddam do anything other than hunker down when he was still the legitimate head of state in that once-sovereign nation. We have satellites, ACMs, jets, bombers, and a whole host of ways to immediately dissolve anyone or anything on the planet that displeases us, and without doing anything more than flicking a joy-stick. What reason do we have to put our citizens in the middle of a shooting gallery?

Oh yeah, the 2.5 billion per month we give to corporations to supply those kids we put out there like clay pigeons for the local insurgents to work their frustrations out on. Hell, we even let KBR poison our troops with contaminated washing and bathing water, according to a report this week. Yeah, anything for the troops.

Which brings me to this last issue.

4. Our military is on the verge of complete dysfunction as a result of this Iraq War.

The lie is that employing our troops is supporting our troops. That calling for a withdrawal of our troops is betraying our troops.

This is the most repugnant lie of all. This week 12 GI’s died in roadside bomb blasts. That means that, as they were either on patrol or moving from one place to another, a homemade bomb was detonated next to them and they were killed for the simple act of being there. Not killed in a firefight. Not killed protecting a barrier or a position. Not even engaging the enemy. They were killed for being in Iraq, by a citizen of Iraq who wanted him or her to no longer be in their country.

It’s as simple as that.

We can argue about why President Bush sent our troops into Iraq, and we can argue as to whether it’s been a good thing or a bad thing that our troops invaded and reduced that nation to the mess it is today, but what is not debatable is the fact that our troops aren’t being used in Iraq to defend this nation from anyone in that nation. The people in that nation can’t even make it from one side of Baghdad to the other without a good chance of being killed as they attempt it. What threat could any of them be to us?

Unless, of course, one of us is walking through their neighborhoods, in plain sight, wearing the uniform of our military, and providing a clear target for one of the locals who might have gotten his hands on a weapon. Then again, who would be so foolish as to put themselves out there like that, to draw that kind of dangerous attention? Unless they were ordered to do so.

So, tell me again how we’re supporting our troops by forcing them to walk down those dangerous streets, when no one hiding in the buildings that crowd those narrow streets has the power to harm anyone other than each other, and those unlucky American guys and gals that pulled the short straws to walk down those brutal canyons on our behalf?

I want our troops to live. I want those kids to get a chance to grow up, live their lives, have their families, and get a chance to realize their dreams in life. These aren’t “troops”. These are our fellow American citizens. We protect each other by preventing harm to each other. We support each other by helping each other out, and lifting the burden off each other.

We don’t support each other by sending each other back – again and again – into the most dangerous places on earth, under the heaviest emotional and psychological strain imaginable, for no clear benefit to their own society or loved ones. We certainly don’t do this so that a handful of huge corporations can gouge their loved ones with overpriced commodities and cripple their ability to afford to survive back home, where these soldiers would pay any price to be able to return, if only it were possible.

“Support Our Troops” doesn’t mean keep sending them into the jaws of hell until they break. There’s a special ring of hell reserved for those people who have pushed that lie on the rest of us. God isn’t stupid, and He’s not unaware. Also, Jesus didn’t suffer and die on any cross to forgive anyone of that kind of raw evil. Look it up. It becomes crystal clear after a few turns of those pages where all these liars look for guidance on how to properly spin reality to suit their purposes.

So, these were the issues that greeted me this morning. Barack and Hillary will survive for another day, and the body politic will race from one accident scene to another, as it stumbles on to yet another version of American democracy by the time November rolls in.

What won’t change is the overwhelming nature of these 4 issues. They won’t go away, and they won’t get any less threatening. We made these decisions, and we’ll be responsible for the damage that these issues cause us a society. We’ll also be responsible for the lies that we accept, and promote that sit at the base of all of these problems. In fact, if not for our need to believe and embrace these lies, we’d be free to solve these enormous problems. Then again, we’d likely craft new lies to shield these issues from our efforts to solve them. It’s suggested that we get the government that we deserve. If this is true, then we must suck a lot harder than we could ever imagine sucking.

When you look at it all in the context of human history, it’s staggering. It’s only taken us 200 years or so to completely blow this thing and create the kinds of unsolvable problems that will likely bring us down. That’s gotta be a record of some kind.

Okay, so I’ll admit that I don’t always see things the way that most people see them.In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I often don’t see things the way that most people see them.It might even be suggested that I have a way of seeing things that lies just on the other side of “What the hell is he thinking?” from just about everyone that I know.And yet, I have a high enough rate of successfully nailing the truth behind complicated issues and convoluted scenarios to allow me to feel safe in my indulgence of this fairly unconventional angle of perspective, and to even have a certain amount of confidence in sharing it with others.Even really weird notions that most people would likely keep to themselves.In the interest of allowing you to get a better idea of who I am and what I bring to the table of public discourse, I’ve decided to list out some of my more significant departures from the mainstream of American perspective.  Not as grand display of singular insight, or even as a public confession of remorse for the sin of being a spokesman for anyone other than the celebrated common man.-yeah, remorse.  Good one.No, this is just to serve notice that not only do I see things differently than most people see them, it’s also to make sure that y’all understand completely that I make no apologies for how I see things.  Also, to make absolutely certain that it’s clear that I’m not afraid to stand right next to my opinions, and won’t be ashamed of them.  Even if they prove to be dead wrong – which has happened from time to time, although generally to my great relief when they are proven wrong.So, with no further caveat, here are some of my “greatest hits” and misses from the last 10 years or so.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton will be the worst mistake the GOP has ever made in recent history.  It will blow up in their faces, and all the players will take it right in the tailpipe as a direct result of the public’s revulsion of it as an obvious political assassination attempt.

Actually, this wasn’t very far off the mark.  Gingrich did go down in flames.  The GOP Rep who stood in line to replace him as Speaker went down soon after due to his own infidelity scandal, and I’m sure that Larry Craig wishes there wasn’t yards of video tape with him calling Bill “a naughty, naughty boy”.What I didn’t count on was that we’d all be taking it in the ass years later as a DNC controlled House and Senate stands paralyzed with fear of public backlash over bringing legitimate impeachment charges against the Bush/Cheney criminal conspiracy, due to the fact that the public really did react in revulsion over the obviousness of it as a GOP political hit job.So, I guess I underestimated the body count in all of it.  We’re all getting it in the end.

The anthrax attacks are somehow related to the 9/11 attacks, and likely as a not-so-subtle warning to the media and the DNC to shut down the investigation into the particulars surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

I felt this way immediately, and still see the value of those “unsolved” attacks as a constant threat against our elected government.  The facts are – without going into great detail – that as the media and the DNC-controlled Senate began to come out of the shock we all felt over the 9/11 attacks, and stories began to surface about the bizarre anomalies surrounding those attacks, the anthrax mailing began.Four mailings were made.  Two to the media – a relatively small Florida paper (a “hello, we’re here” mailing?) and one to Tom Brokaw’s office at NBC – and two mailed to the offices of the Senate’s DNC leadership (Pat Leahy of Vermont and Tom Daschle of South Dakota).  The rest of what transpired was the cross contamination impact as those letters infected mailrooms and sorting machines all over the east coast, making it clear that if only four letters could cripple our entire postal system for weeks, imagine what one hundred letters could do.Do I think this involved George Bush and Dick Cheney mailing these things from some secret-handshake clubhouse on the grounds of Camp David?  Hardly.  However, if you ask me if I think Osama bin Laden was involved, then I’d have to repeat that answer.  Hardly.  I believe that the perpetrators of 9/11 were the same perpetrators of the anthrax attacks.  I also believe that our government knows it too, and that this is why the investigation into the anthrax attacks went nowhere and has been virtually shut down, and why there is such a widespread official resistance to a full investigation of the attacks of 9/11.  Not a malevolent conspiracy in our government to cover up the truth, but possibly a protective conspiracy to prevent a real disaster as the true villains of 9/11 reap their benefits at the rate of tens of billions of dollars per month.

The Iraq invasion was based on lies, and would become regarded as our nation’s most costly and intractable failure in collective judgement.

Nothing much to add here, except that I took a hell of a lot of heat from everyone I know and people I didn’t know that made a point of letting me know what kind of traitor I was for blogging about this heretical notion, and that this has been he one correct call that I really wish I’d been a little wrong about.  It may seem like a no-brainer now, but at the time, the idea that a crippled nation, sitting on some of the world’s largest reserves of oil, would become a staggering drain on our economy and our military if we dared to invade and kick out one guy and his immediate family from their string of palaces, was just plain stupid.  Do a search on Iraq Invasion+2003, and see where the all the money was sitting on that bet.

There is no such thing as “spirit”.  Whatever exists, exists as physical including ideas, reactions and information.

Like I said, some of my views sit just beyond the WTF horizon, but I’m sticking to them.  I have a 31,000 word thesis that explores this notion in excruciating detail, but to boil it down to a bumper sticker: at the base of all that exists, there lies a form of physicalness that is required to be common to whatever rises from that base.  If there is no base, then there can’t logically be anything, since all that exists must rest on a base of some sort.  That said, the only way that any two forms of existence can interact or react with one another, is to share existence at some level.  That shared existence must have a base for there to be any sharing of any kind.  That established, if one form of existence is determined to be physical in nature, then whatever it is that shares a base with it must also be physical in nature, since both share a common base.  Therefore, if one accepts the notion of the “physical” sharing existence with the “spiritual” then one must accept the notion that both share a common existential base.  This common base requires that both emerge from the same primordial genesis, and are, therefore, similar in fundamental structure.  Structure implies a physical nature.It’s all actually very simple. Even if it causes some folks to have to reach deep into their view of reality and readjust a few things.  That’s okay, though.  I had to do it, and even though it’s not easy to do, it’s not impossible.

There’s no real “Evil” or “Good”.

There is only competition and compassion.  Evil is the proper execution of what it takes to survive and thrive in an environment that demands that kind of activity.  Compassion is the exact opposite and is actually anathema to the requirements of this environment that we have all been introduced into. Compassion stands as the one dissident move that you can make in this world – in this physical realm.  It is the only true revolution that anyone can launch.Evil can be as benign as making a living so that your genetic issue can grow and further continue your specific DNA contribution to the planet of your birth.  It can also be as horrific as the stuff of your most malignant impulse to dominate and destroy all that exists in a frenzy to prove your innate superiority to yourself and all who survive the holocaust of your ascension.Compassion, on the other hand, has only one expression.  It surrenders the self for the good of another, or for the benefit of an ideal that is held to be of higher value than the self.  Not as a vain martyrdom, feeding a twisted need for glorious self-importance, but as a quiet acknowledgement of the reality of one’s true location in the hierarchy of need within that which exists at all levels, and the happiness to be one with that location, that contribution.  In voluntary coordination with the essence of what existence is designed to serve, and free to enjoy the truth of one’s unique contribution within that existential whole.Basically, there’s no devil and there aren’t any angels.  No vampires either.  No werewolves, although I wish there were.  I just love the idea of werewolves.

UFOs are likely time travelers from our own human future.

As if this thought hasn’t crossed everyone’s mind at some time or other.  Still, it’s pretty foreign to some folks who still hold out for the idea of a planet, millions of lightyears away, finding us and falling in love with us to the point of being at all respectful of us as a species or even as a planet.Nope.  I don’t buy the distant galaxy visitor theory.  The way I know that there aren’t advanced humanoid races that have the power to race across insane expanses of empty universe to visit us with these relatively tiny crafts, is that we’re not serving these things with virgins and whatever else they might want from us at this every minute.  Come on.  Like anything that exists is beyond taking what it can from whatever it finds that’s vulnerable to it.  Sure, maybe a scientist or two within a society might see the value in being responsible with a new discovery, but scientists don’t rise to ultimate power within any society unless they have that twist in their psyche that lies within the damaged personalities of all power players.No, if there are superior races that have full knowledge of our existence, then we’d be working for them right now.  I’m not saying that these UFOs don’t exist, or that the little gray men are a complete hoax.  What I’m saying is that the deference and respect they seem to display for us indicates that they have some serious concerns about screwing with us, and the only concern I can imagine is that special kind of concern that directly impacts their own survival.In essence, I’d be as afraid of one of them as I’d be of my own great, great, great, great (x120) granddaughter.  In fact, exactly as afraid.So, this is just a sample of how my mind works when confronted with what we all have dealt with in the last 10 years or so.  I don’t know if my view is more accurate or not, but I do know that it’s a point of view that’s worth having out there, if only for entertainment value.After the emails I got for that column yesterday about the DNC’s master plan to insulate Barack Obama’s fall general election campaign by running the poor guy through the Clinton mud machine, I thought it best to clear the air about what kind of mind you’re dealing with here.  I felt it also good to be straight about the fact that even if it seems like I’ve gotten snookered by someone or something, it’s likely that I didn’t, but that I just might be catching it all from a very different angle than many of you.Reminds me of the story of the 5 blind men and the elephant.  That’s the one where each blind guy touches the elephant in different places, and describes the beast as he “sees” it from his limited perspective.  We’re all somewhat blind as we feel around the world that presents itself to us, and we each do the best we can as we struggle to make sense of all that surrounds us from day to day.  I never resent a man for telling me that the wall I feel is actually the snake that he feels.  In fact, I tend to remember what he said about it being a snake as I stretch my reach out a bit to see where it might be that the wall becomes a snake.  I mean, no one can possibly mistake a wall for a snake.  That just means to me that I haven’t reached out far enough to get a real handle on what it is that I’m touching.  In fact, I see it as a good thing to allow others to extend my own reach through their unique perspectives.Of course, there’s a limit to how far I’ll allow someone else’s reach to take me.  Like that Scientology crap.  I mean, what the hell are those people thinking?

So, I had a few emails come in yesterday that were pretty insistent that I weigh in on that Eliot Spitzer story. That’s the one about the NY state governor who got caught in a call girl sting operation. Another “surprise” investigation of a Democrat governor (shades of Alabama) by a GOP controlled Department of Justice that has been in the headlines in the last couple years for politicizing the legal system.

To me, it’s a clear case of an idiot with his own money, blowing some of it on a hooker while on a business trip. Nothing spectacular, except for the fact that he’s the guy who ran through Wall Street like the Black Death, and then turned that holocaust into a political step ladder into the top Executive Branch slot in the state that hosts this vaunted boulevard of every capitalist’s wet dream of ultimate financial windfall.

I considered it all: a Democrat leader of the Executive Branch, caught diddling on his wife as a result of an unrelated investigation, with calls from a GOP controlled legislature for his resignation under threat of impending impeachment, as a nation holds its breath.

It sounded pretty familiar. Only, the last time I got caught up in it, there was a president involved, and the stakes were a lot higher than this time around. I also liked the last guy a lot more than this repugnant little headhunting fast-tracker. In fact, this greaseball has at least as much blood on his hands as anyone gunning for him right now. To me, it’s like a mob war hit. Just so long as the shooting doesn’t take out any innocents, I’m all for letting these crooks work this one out for themselves.

Besides the obvious fact of the Wall Street overlords’ use of the federal Justice Department, once again, as their private assassination squad, I’m not moved at all by any of this. The bastard wined and dined some prostitute while out of town, on Valentine’s Day no less, and then has the nerve to make his wife stand next to him on the podium as he pretends to be ashamed of himself for what he did. I don’t like guys who betray their wives. I don’t trust guys who betray their wives. I don’t want guys who betray their wives making big decisions about the rest of us , who they have also sworn to love, honor and obey. I am tired of also being betrayed by those guys. One less is no loss.

So, in essence, the Eliot Spitzer story is only a story if you are Eliot Spitzer, or one of the Wall Street aristocracy that has hired the DOJ to run him down liken the dog he apparently is. I guess it’s a story if you are married to the creep as well. Which I’m not. So, forget that circus.

This is what I really want to discuss.

I had an epiphany this morning. This was after yesterday’s gut churning revelation that the Clinton campaign had gone from pulling out the Karl Rove “fear” playbook, to reaching into Strom Thurmond’s grave for the vile segregationist’s manual that even Ol’ Strom had tossed in there years before he was slipped in as a reformed man, a guy who had come to realize the evil of diminishing people due to the color of their skin.

I actually had, what I hope to be, a realization concerning Geraldine Ferraro’s unbelievable statement to the Daily Breeze of Torrance, CA;

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

This was followed by Hillary’s “sort of” rejection of her campaign fund-raiser’s repugnant suggestion that Barack Obama is running to be our first

“Affirmative Action” hire in the Oval Office: “I do not agree with that,” and later adding, “It’s regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal. We ought to keep this on the issues. there are differences between us” on approaches to health care, energy, experience.

I must admit that Hillary’s lack of real focus on the behavior of Ferraro in her statement, said more to me than I wanted it to say, and certainly more than I expected it to say. In fact, what it did say to me – loud and clear – was that the Ferraro comments were likely no surprise to Hillary or the campaign itself. Especially considering the fact that Geraldine has since become absolutely unapologetic in subsequent statements, further drawing the comparison between Barack Obama and that legendary black guy or gal that every white person has heard of that got his/her job due to racial quotas and was unable to perform in that job.

I guess that you can say anything you like if your political career is long over and all you have to do is deal with the politics of the boardroom, where there aren’t as many people concerned about the “niceties” of human decency.

Oh, and Hillary hasn’t asked Geraldine to lose her cell number over any of this either. I find that fascinating considering how loud the calls were for Obama to can that unpaid foreign policy professor after she called Hillary “a monster” during an “of the record” segment of an interview with a Scottish journalist who was initially focusing on the woman’s recent book. So, one woman calling another woman “a monster” is more odious than the first woman to ever run on a presidential ticket calling the truly viable black presidential contender a racial quota hire? What year is this anyway? I look outside and the cars in the street sure appear to belong to 2008. It’s like one of those Rod Serling things. I’m waiting for the clarification, and it just doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

But then, this morning, it hit me. Of course. It all makes sense now. This must be what it’s all about. I believe I’ve finally figured out why all of this bizarre foolishness is playing through the DNC primary contest. I think I have uncovered the brilliant and amazingly selfless charade being perpetuated by the Clinton campaign as it becomes increasingly more obvious that it can’t ever succeed in placing Senator Clinton into the presidency this time around. I’m kind of excited about this, to be honest. It renews my faith in humanity, and gives me just the kind of enthusiasm that I needed to keep working on bringing a few more people around to a more sane and reasonable point of perspective.

I’m pretty worked up here, but I’ll try to stay focused and hit all the highlights.

So, whenever an issue is brought up in any campaign, and if that issue is either directly or indirectly related to an issue that was properly fleshed out previously in that same campaign, the candidate in question has the right to say “That’s old news” and to expect that all involved will pull away from that specific issue and move along. This has been the “Old News” rule since I can recall there being political campaign issues – which stretches back to the days of Nixon/Agnew v Humphrey/Muskie and all that cool news footage of riots in Chicago over stuff I had no concern over as a pre-teen rockstar wannabe.

In fact, the “Old News” rule has saved many politicians’ bacon over the years, even when it wasn’t entirely applicable. It’s a pretty potent get-outa-trouble-free card due to the fact that every politician knows that there may come a day when it will be a card that they’ll need for themselves, so no one wants that card tossed from the game. It taketh, but it giveth at such a healthy return that no pol haseth the guts to taketh it away from any other pol who decides their latest-eth chicanery is covered by the saving grace of the “Old News” rule.

So, I’m seeing a variation of the “Old News” rule being played out here in the DNC primary, and if I’m right, Hillary is giving Barack Obama the get-outa-trouble-free card before he heads into the general election campaign with the masters of sleaze – the Grand Old Party.

I mean, it has to be what’s going on here. Turning all these issues about Obama’s race, assumed inexperience, NAFTA posturing, “Muslimness”, fear mongering, – the entire GOP handbook – even the bombshell “Affirmative Action” quota set-aside proposition, into “Old News” in a relatively safe political environment where no DNC candidate will be denied the White House over it’s introduction in a “live play” scenario is sheer genius, and given the memory cycle of the American public, none of it should impact Hillary beyond this time next year.

It certainly couldn’t be what it appears to be. Hillary doesn’t really strike me as the kind of person who would blow her political head off with a shotgun just to get her gore all over Barack’s suit, as if making him dry-clean her mess is somehow getting even with him for beating her in a head-to-head contest. I could see that happening between two alcoholic lovers lost in a fit of powerless rage with one another, and both had once been the kinds of teenagers that had that annoying habit of “playing songs at each other” when they were pissed, while the rest of us kids tried our best to ignore their embarrassingly maudlin drama. God, remember those couples? ugh.

No, Hillary has been in the political world far too long to be pulling a Britney Spears on us, over losing this first bid for her husband’s old job. Seriously, what could she possibly say to justify such childish behavior, while claiming to have the relax and even temperament required to steer the largest ship of state in the world?

Nope. I’m not buying into this whole weirdo drama. This last volley of crap has finally revealed it all for what it must be, a self-sacrifice on the part of Hillary Clinton to insulate Barack Obama from the kinds of ugly accusations and suggestions that are going to be part and parcel of the Republican attack strategy in the fall. This is also why she refuses to conceded defeat after it has become numerically impossible for her to catch Obama for the nomination. As long as she stays in, the McCain forces will stay away and let the two Democrats feed on each other. The truth just may be, however, that this feeding is forced, and the results may be a much stronger and much more Teflon-coated Barack Obama heading into the November election.

I’m really seeing this as a coordinated effort introduce everything that the GOP has gathered and ready for this first African-American presidential candidate, and turn it all into “Old News”, thereby blunt it all in the minds of the American public well before the GOP gets a shot with it. In fact, by the time Barack launches from the DNC convention and into the final stretch, it’ll seem like the GOP is working Hillary’s campaign playbook, and even the hard-Right will smell the stink of Clinton on all of it. Nothing turns GOP stomachs like Clinton stink. I’ll be interested to see how they react to being likened to Hillary and Bill as they reach in that bucket for the same tools that they watched those two use against Obama to no avail. The term “damaged goods” comes to mind as I picture the first Rovian race/fear burst launched from a 527 group. None of it will have the impact it could’ve had if it had been allowed to be launched fresh. The 10th cookie is never as good as the 1st cookie. That’s just the way it is.

I suggested this all to my wife, and she looked at me as if I had two heads. “The Clintons aren’t that strategic,” she said. “No one is that strategic.

“To which I replied, “Well then, maybe I need to get myself one of those 7 figure campaign strategy jobs, because this seems like a no-brainer to me.

“The truth is that Hillary, if she’s not actually trying to insulate Obama’s general campaign run, after hitting that tipping point where she knows it’s just not going to happen for her, then she’s acting absolutely irrational in this swan dive strategy she’s launched. Scorched earth is always a possibility, but with all that the Clintons have endured since the spring of 1992, I just don’t see these two having the lack of control, or the tragically myopic political view,to allow her campaign to devolve as it has without a very serious reason behind all of it. Bill didn’t get to be president because he was an idiot, and he’s got some say in this campaign his wife is waging.

The bottom line is that Barack Obama needs for all for this to be labeled “Old News” by the national media, and in the same manner that it’s always labeled issues like this that have been hashed out to death in previous scenarios as “Old News.” He’s poised to be the Democratic nominee, and there appears to be no sane scenario that can deny him that nomination. As DNC party heavyweights, it is critical that the Clintons do their part to ensure his success in the fall, and by lengthening the primary campaign’s public vetting of Barack Obama, and by airing out every possible issue that the GOP can bring up in the fall, turning each one into “Old News”, Barack Obama stands to gain a resilience that would have been impossible if he’d not been thoroughly tested prior to taking a run at the Republican hate machine that’s ready to attack as soon as Hillary folds her hand.

So, I’m feeling pretty good here about all of this. I firmly believe that there are grownups that are getting ready to take back the Oval Office and that we have a good shot at turning things around (to the extent that any of it can actually be turned around after the last 7 years). I can finally make some sense of what’s seemed to me to be a complete nightmare of hate and reckless childishness. It’s all clear to me now. Like debate prep, the DNC is pretending to be the GOP and Barack is getting his practice in as a political slime target, while blunting the effectiveness that “new” news has in these sorts of contests that involve the visceral reactions of regular folks just trying to make sense of what they’re hearing and seeing for the first time.

Politics 101. Just make it “Old News” and half the battle is over.

I think I’m going to enjoy the rest of this. Especially, now that I know how it all ends.

Okay, so when was the last time planning a fall presidential general election around the traditional Blue States campaign strategy for a Democratic nominee actually worked out to give that candidate a 51% majority of the votes cast? If you say 1996, then you’d be wrong. Remember Ross Perot? Yep, Bill Clinton never broke the elusive 51% barrier in either wins, and we all know what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry – framing that sea of red with isolated smatters of blue for back to back losses against a pretty weak GOP offering. George Bush had his core constituency, but the man was no Ronald Reagan when it came to electrifying the electorate across ideological lines.So again, when was that old standby – the Blue State Strategy – ever a winning strategy for the DNC?The answer is – never.The truth is that this idiotic reaction to the easily disrupted GOP political strategy that leans entirely on nebulous and unattainable goals like Christian family values, morality in government, and the Holy Grail of “Right-To-Life” legislation, has savaged the Democratic Party’s ability to effectively connect with the very people who stand to gain the most from its primary tenets of economic justice and fair play. When you stop falling for the rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky promises that have never been seriously addressed by the Republican politicians that have held those Red States like Iron Curtain collectives, it becomes crystal clear that the Democratic Party is uniquely positioned to be the best hope for these sadly neglected parts of America where jobs, schools, incomes, and community services are sorely lacking and desperately needed.Not only that, but the DNC stands to gain immeasurably from these proud and independently resilient people who don’t ask their country for anything more than the opportunity to work for the success that has always been the hallmark of the America they’ve always looked to with respect and admiration.These folks are what the Democratic Party has always been designed to serve, and it’s high time that it finally recognizes the true value of these long forgotten hostages to the corporate funded criminals of the GOP and the empty strains of their siren song of God’s eternal justice as the official government policy of a Christian nation that lies just beyond those evil barriers erected by the demons of the Liberal opposition.In fact, if this Orwellian lie of ‘capitalism as morality’ could ever be exposed for what it is, this nation of serfs could rise against its corporate overlords, realize the dream of true social democracy, and put the products and service providers of our society back in their proper place as servants of the people who grant them existence. However, until that can happen, the Red will hate the Blue, who will pity the Red, who will continue to vote against their own interests for government that serves the tiny percentage of ultra-rich as, these world-class manipulators smile quietly and feed the ongoing culture war between both groups of servants in exactly the same way they did back when folks like them came with titles like Lord, Lady, Sire and Your Majesty. Yes, make no mistake here. Nothing has changed in the world of human governance. Not since the dawn of civilization. The names have changed, and the rhetoric has been updated, but beyond that, the average human being is still working, fighting and dying on behalf of the world’s aristocracy, whether you call them Barons or C-Level Executive Officers.So, this year, there seems to be chink in the gleaming armor of this Red v Blue protective corporate strategy, and I’m seeing panic on both sides of the political isle. You’d think that if the DNC powers-that-be were given a prayer of reaching into these Red State forbidden zones, with a candidate or a message that could inspire a political upheaval, that there would be excitement and enthusiasm for both this candidate and this message. But then – if you did think that – apparently, you’d be wrong. At least from a substantial percentage of the DNC party muscle that’s gathered around the candidacy of the former First Lady-turned-Senator-turned-faltering presidential hopeful.Now, I could understand the campaign of Hillary Clinton making its last ditch pitch for her as we take this long run at PA and it’s own version of Super Tuesday Rev 3.0, if it didn’t entail a campaign strategy based on dismissing a majority of the population of the entire country. A majority, by the way, that put GW back into power after he showed us all what a complete disaster he’d be in the next 4 years of inanity – and likely did so due to the same idiotic “strategy” handed to the hapless John Kerry in 2004.So, when was the last time this Blue State Strategy worked to elect a Democrat into the White House? Without the help of a 3rd party candidate putting that “big sucking sound” into the ears of the GOP hopeful?Oh yeah….never.So, yesterday, Ed Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania, made a showing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and had the gall to suggest that because Barack Obama was able to trounce Hillary Clinton in every single state other than the “safe” Blue States, that this means that Hillary Clinton stands the best chance to regain the White House this fall as the DNC standard bearer. I would imagine that this will be the mantra of the Clinton campaign for the next 5 weeks until PA gets its opportunity to be her last ditch chance at keeping her campaign alive.I figure that if no one challenges this “wisdom”, the suggestion that every state – and every voter in those states – that dared to defy the Hillary “juggernaut” in favor of the Obama campaign, is insignificant, unnecessary, and not a concern going into the fall election for the Democratic Party, will be firmly planted in the minds of every person who lives in these states, and the political map on the first Wednesday of November will exactly reflect it, proving this “wisdom” yet again to the distress of the rest of us folks who’d love to see something change in this bi-polar nation we live in.Let’s face it. Things can’t go on as they’ve been. We can’t continue perpetuating this idea of a society where islands of Blue fly over seas of Red, clucking their tongues as they look down from 35,000 feet and disregarding everything those seas have to offer. We can’t have seas of Red dreaming of the day when they can swallow those arrogantly delinquent Blue islands whole and drown the entire nation in a riptide of faux-theocratic corporate obedience. We’re likely one major terrorist event away from all out armed civil war, and someone needs to wake up to what we’ve all had a hand in creating of ourselves. Especially since none of this is true. The whole damn country is shades of Blue mixed with shades of Red, and has always been that way. It’s only this corporate aristocracy that sees the value in turning us against one another. Them, and the political henchmen that they offer us as saviors to rescue us from the boogeymen they manufacture for our darkest nightmares. And all in the name of quarterly profits.The whole ruse would be wonderfully ingenious if nobody was getting hurt in the process.If Hillary needs to insult half the nation in order to go down in flames in November, then maybe we need to protect ourselves from that disaster by refusing to allow her to take us along for the ride. Just because her last name is Clinton, and her husband is the roguishly irresistible Bill Clinton – promising 4 more years of great late-night standup material and Talk Radio hyperbolic fun – it doesn’t give Hillary the right to tear us all apart again after George Bush II worked so hard to bring us all together in this stark realization that we need to do something meaningful to shut down the insanity of the last 16 years of national political warfare and the corporate fleecing of our Treasury that’s resulted from the distraction.We need to shut this crap down and we need to do it right now. By this time the week of PA’s primary vote, it’ll likely be too late to save any of what we began to see as a real and honest push for serious change in this society. By then, we’ll have gotten so angry and isolated by the brutal “hardball” rhetoric, that coming together at any level will be literally impossible. And what’s worse, is that this one chance for the party of the common folks – the only real hope for the empowerment of those common folks – to finally reach out and hand that socio-economic lifeline to the Red State prisoners who so desperately need it, will be lost for the lifetimes of so many that have been driven down so far by the Machiavellian tactics of the corporate-funded leaders they look to for guidance.Yes, Obama wins Red States, and does so with record shattering turnouts. Hillary squeaks by in Blue States, with Obama still shattering records in vote totals as she does. This reality doesn’t mean that Hillary is the Democratic Party’s best shot at gaining the Oval Office in November. This means that Barack Obama stands ready to bring Red and Blue states together for the first time since politicos cut us all up according to color, and gave us that odious visual reference to help us constantly remember just how divided we are as a nation. And how crippled we are as a society because of it.Someone needs to shut this one terrible talking point down before the Ed Rendells of our political landscape poison us all for good. If you hear this tactic being employed, shout it down. If you read it on a blog forum, post against it. Spread the word that we’re one nation, and that it’s high time we began acting like one nation.We worry about language tearing us apart, as if allowing some people to access critical information in their own tongue as they work to transition into our society, will Balkanize us as a people, and yet, we allow ourselves to be sliced up into regions of Red and Blue, where never the twain shall meet and connect with one another over the fundamentals like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.Let’s start claiming our united independence again. Let’s reject this Red/Blue notion of who we are as Americans. The last time they succeeded in separating us by color, the choices were Blue and Gray.And, we all know how well that served us as a nation.