Got Terror?

Terrorism in other places is complicated but we can grasp the basics. When we look at ourselves, here at home, our ability to understand what fuels it, and thus our ability to defend against it, is hampered by domestic interests of the marketplace and the political arena. This chllenge has been dangerously compounded by the fact that somewhere in the Cheney/Rove era we replaced our acting ethics with a merely spoken morality. It was a very dangerous sleight of hand.

Here is a litle example of why that is:

Somewhere near Salinas there is a pissed-off (illegal) immigrant from our failed (due to market-driven corruption) nation-state neighbor to the south. His wife (women learn new languages first, so she can read English) read him this Washington Post story. It details the dairy industry’s willingness to spend millions of dollars on efforts to collude, with abandoned ethics, against one individual entrepreneur.

Dairy Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System

(Or the original AZ Republic story:)
Maverick Dairyman Fights Lobbyists and Lawmakers

The article made our immigrant friend realize that the Agriculture industry will pay a pro-corruption lobbyist more in an hour than they will pay a whole busload of his border-crossing, hard working, refugee, band-of-brothers in a year. Maybe it made him angry, because he understands that every wealthy nation has an immigrant low-wage labor resource and that the United States is the only wealthy nation in history whose immigrant labor class has never bread terrorism. He noticed that, as a reward for this good behavior we recently gave them 3 miles of worthless actual fencing and a 300 mile wall of state-sponsored rhetorical prejudice.

So he took a poop on the Organic Spinach last month.

Now his drinking buddy heard about that, and sees it the same way, and so he took a dump on the onions last week.

And if they have a buddy who works in a dairy, the lobbying/legal expense detailed in those articles will all be for naught.

I am willing to bet very few people outside of the dairy industry read both of these articles. But when the headline of this same paper says "GOT E-COLI?" every family in America, will promptly trade their $5 a week milk budget line for a gallon of free tap water, $1.75 increase to the Starbucks "soy latte' " budget line, and one more gallon of gas. The cash flow of a 30 Billion dollar a year marketplace could be shut down without a single explosion. Simply because we won't trade our spoken Morals, for our acted Ethics.

We can, and we should do all of the dark things we do to fight terror. We should spy on ourselves, steal elections and kill innocents. But if our morality remains only rhetorical (and wildly prejudiced), and our ethics further abandoned for widening greed and corruption, then America will fail in our lifetime.

Regardless of what the Mullahs do next.

Thanks for letting me try and express my thoughts.

A.

A Book Worth Burning

How far down will the American business community sink before the spreading stain of failed ethics consumes our remaining freedom of ideas?

The publication of OJ Simpson’s confessional book is the darkest moment in the History of American Arts and Letters.

I could not have imagined believing this, but I feel America has finally produced a book worth burning.

The Goldman's website.

The Blue State Kool-Aid Acid Test

It’s the economy AND the last 48 Hours, stupid.
Why is Karl Smiling?

Every pollster, pundit and commentator is buzzing with the story. Republicans are so afraid they are eating their own. Democrats are already picking out new curtains for their take-over of the Congress, and possibly the Senate. It’s a dramatic media moment of Pre-History.

Don’t get your hopes up America.

The prevailing wisdom is flawed to the bone and no honorable pundit worth his salt should be saying otherwise. The media are crying so hard at the funeral that they are forgetting to see if there is really a body in the ground. Every relevant article written about this election starts out: “The Democrats are poised to take over the House and make gains in the Senate”. Then follows, inevitably, the most under-reported word in American polling.

“Unless”

Here are the two reasons why the Democrats might not make significant gains on Tuesday.

“Democrats are poised to take over the House and make gains in the Senate unless an unforeseen dramatic event takes place. The next three days is an important test of America’s free press and, despite some appearances of valiant effort, the test may well be failed to Karl Rove’s history-making advantage.

Has a single public pollster asked: “Are you aware that Saddam Hussein will be sentenced to death on Sunday?” The (we presume death) sentence will appear as Monday morning’s headline in 100% of the news outlets. And it will make all the difference.

“Democrats are poised to take over the House and make gains in the Senate unless Rove can influence the undecided votes in key districts. The most ignored election factor in the past three cycles is the combined success of Republican gerrymandering and 72 hour action plans. The polls may be accurate when they report that 70% of Americans want a fresh start in Congress. What they don’t reflect is that 70% of the country does not readily equate with 51% of the voters who matter. Everyone thinks the Christians will stay home and the disunited non-voting Democrats will show up. That seems naïve to me.

The media polls are usually off by a margin of plus or minus 3-5%. Karl Rove lives in that margin. Karl can keep his job if he: A: Gets 1 or 2% of those polled to change their vote to Republican. (Most likely with a big scary headline, like Saddam being sentenced to death.) B: Quietly controls that 3-5% margin of error. (With his proven 72 hour plan, gerrymandered districts and Sin-to-Win campaign tactics.) This will get him 5-8% more votes per race than the national polls indicate he has. That will keep the Senate and maybe even the House in Republican control.

I hope your vote proves me wrong.

Thanks for your time,

A.

In Arcadium Est

Stay The Farce

In a desperate acknowledgment that the Neo-Conservative occupations of both the US and Iraq are in Clear and Present Danger of simultaneous collapse this election cycle, The White House has held a series of High Level Meetings about Iraq. The impression one gets is that The Best and The Brightest have been called in to try and convince George W. Bush that the war in Iraq and the Republican majority can be lost.

The best they have come up with is to state publicly that America needs a new slogan in order to accomplish whatever our goals actually are in Iraq.

Three words (Stay The Course) have been the sole strategic and tactical guidance implemented by the Neo-Conservatives for almost 3 years. These words were fine for the early stages of the Iraq occupation but the conflict has evolved.

I am just a cowboy, so I don’t have our leader’s sophisticated framework of comprehensive situational awareness in the war on terror. Sometimes I think it is all just A Great Game. I can’t really call up the ironic historic timeline of Iraq. To me there is just a blur starting with a woman and man eating a Pomegranate, through some motorcycle guy named T.E. Lawrence and some kind of Arab League and a bunch of Young Turks, and then something called ARAMCO and on and on, all ending up with forward elements of the 3rd I.D., a Marine Expeditionary Force and a sand grounded 101st Air Assault Division overthrowing a savage dictator originally empowered by the CIA.

No, I am obviously not qualified to have a strong opinion about U.S. adventurism in a place that my children already call:

“Viet-Sand”.

But I do think the Time Is Now for us to Up the Ante and use four or even five words to fight the Iraq war. I realize it sounds radical, but I am frustrated by our stagnated cycle of dysfunctional leadership.

I say we need a complete sentence.

Thanks,

A.

SIN TO WIN

Well I went to church on Sunday, I was feelin’ blue.
Saturday night sat down beside me, in the very last pew.
- Ambulance Brothers


Bush and the Republicans rose to power on a platform of religious fervor. The "values" message has been extremist in it’s zeal, but there is a confusing contradiction between their words and their actions. Almost any unchristian act is acceptable, provided it furthers their power and is backed up by properly coded words extolling "family values". The Reagan Revolution has devolved into a surreal pendulum between Sunday Morning Christianity and Saturday Night Sinfulness.

The Sunday Morning Christians of the GOP go to church once a week and say they believe in Christ’s Path. They refresh their dented faith for an hour, set an example for the kids and show the voters they are “clean”. Once they leave the church, however, they carry their political flag forward using acts and deeds that are the very definition of what Christ died to protest.

Rove’s Republicans take the Jesuit doctrine that “The Ends Justify the Means” one step further into the American Democratic experience: They made it heroic to push the limits of Christian behavior in pursuit of more power, more money and more glory. If the ethos of the Republican Party can be boiled down into one of their own simpleton-minded talking points it would be this:

SIN TO WIN.

It worked well for a time, mostly because nothing unifies like prejudice. Being judgemental against other population groups is as easy as it is unsophisticated. It drives the fearful masses like a blizzard drives cattle across the prairie. Now, however, the Republicans face serious election year blowback from the faithful. They built a national chorus of judgmental speaking but it was to polished. The reality of their actions could never match their promise of perfection. Christians are more than mildly concerned. It is suddenly late in the evening of W.'s Presidency and the date that brought him would like to dance.

… Lest ye be Judged


Under the current leadership Republicans openly proclaimed themselves to be the Party of Christ. But lately they are acting like the Party of Caesar. On Sundays they gleefully rouse the pitchfork and torch crowd, under the guise of Christ’s Path. But on Saturday night they trade, sell, conspire, deal, abuse power and ignore truths in a way that would make even the Romans bow in awe. (See "The Party of Dog" entry below.) They define themselves at every issue and every contrived moral crisis by what they are against. They proudly destroy any people (christian or otherwise) who disagree with them or any idea that threatens their power.

I have enormous faith in my heart. I believe Christ walked the earth. I have only ever wanted to ask him one thing: How can so many intelligent people be so loyal to you with their words and yet so sadly faithless to the key details of behavior that you died to espouse? I see the fish icons and the W. bumper stickers on rows of SUVs at the churches in our neighborhood each Sunday. I see them on the road on Monday and I wonder:

Why don’t you drive like a Christian?

I was raised to believe that Christian ethics are very, very simple: You determine what is right and what is easy. You do what is right and not what is easy. You suffer the discomfort, or rewards, of your choice as God has chosen for you. You move on down the path.

I was a Reagan independent. (I also recall that Reagan defeated a devote Christian.) I am sad that the GOP has grown away from Reagan's gentle but resolute faith in Americans. They turned the party into a vitriolic marketing machine that brands faith in Christ like pro sports brand cheap beer. The Republicans of this era carry the same great cross of the ages before them in their march. They wave the same large, crisp flag of patriotism. But the only devotion they show in their deeds is to make sure that someone else is riding the cross this time up the hill.

Thanks for letting me try and share my thoughts.

A.

The Party Of Dog

This week's Roll Call for Republican Patriots (choose your favorite):

1) Drunken, Spouse-Abusing, Sex Maniac Porn Addict.

2) FBI investigating Senior Republican Sentator’s office for illegal $50,000,000.00 Pentagon spending fraud.

3) FBI Raids Congressman’s Daughter in probe of illegal $1,000,000.00 foreign lobby contract.

4) Congressman admits guilt in Abramoff corruption, bribery. Doesn't resign (yet).

5) Congressman in charge of protecting America's children from sex predators flees Washington as sex predator.

After the Equinox

Ney's Resolution

Congressman, until proven guilty.


A.

Foley's Paradox

Being a Gay Republican is like being a Jewish Nazi:

(Your people won't forgive you in this world, and your God won't forgive you in the next.)

A.

My First Blog Post

Wow,

This is my first Blog Post.

I am really glad that it is over now.

A.

Blank Test

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