Random Political Thoughts Part 16

The time for viewing others as heroes is over. The time for viewing others as comrades has begun.

I can’t help thinking children would be better off if they weren’t raised in a culture entirely immersed in corporate ideology. That they would be more able to think for themselves if their minds weren’t molded by television from their earliest age and then handed an iPod a couple of short years later. As Russell Brand said, “The people on the other end of the screen are not your friends.”

Whenever there is a leftist in power here or abroad, watch conservatives pretend to care about poor people.

It’s hard to believe we went from my parents’ generation, who wore suits and dresses to do their shopping, to a generation that wears their slippers and pajama bottoms to Walmart.

Does it bother no one that there is not one person in authority, no millionaire journalist with their own primetime show or prominent politician, who is willing to ask questions about Jeffrey Epstein?

I suspect that the typical Republican is one who does the dirty work of making the sausage and is aware of the cruelty involved in the process, and the typical Democrat is one who enjoys the finished product and would rather not know the unpleasant details.

Protests are happening in Spain and all over France. They are happening in Iraq, Ecuador, England, Haiti, Chile, and elsewhere. But your TV will only show you the ones that are happening in Venezuela and Hong Kong, because they are not inconvenient to our rulers. Auto Workers and Teachers are in the streets, but not on your TVs.

If oligarchy had an actual, physical, ass, our politicians would be lining up to kiss it.

There is no crisis so great that reconnecting with nature, neighborhood, community, time-honored values, and simplicity will not alleviate it. Think of this when you feel helpless amid problems too big for you. And if you’re terrified of an impending future of bomb shelters and looters, just remember this is not the only possible outcome, it is merely the only one our current rulers and their acolytes can imagine.

As the 90’s baseball stats will forever have an asterisk next to them for steroids, today’s journalism and film awards will have one for propaganda.

I have not yet read Sun Tsu’s Art of War, but I’m willing to bet “When Russia hacks your election to elect a neo-fascist, your first course of action must be to censor progressive media” is not in it anywhere.

Remember when the media used to have programs that critiqued the media? I miss those.

What if Russia is propping up Biden so that Trump will have an easy victory in 2020?

Capitalism has convinced us that poisons applied to our lawns and formulas from a can for babies are improvements over nature.

The Democratic Party is like a baby tooth that stubbornly hangs on while an adult tooth is trying to take its rightful place. It has outlived its purpose, it is delaying progress and maturation, and it has grown rotten from sucking from the teat of corporate money. It is not any kind of answer to the corruption of the Republican Party, its bad example permits people to justify continuing to vote for Republicans.

Next time Republicans tell you that the Democrats were the party of slavery, remind them that the Republicans used to support giving asylum to immigrants and be pro-union. Things changed and the racists started voting Republican.

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G.I. Joe And Big Jim: A Political Parable

When I was young, I told my parents I wanted a G.I. Joe for Christmas. Clueless as they were to what it was I wanted, they ended up getting me Big Jim instead. Then they couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy and thought that I was an ungrateful child.

It’s hard to tell an adult the difference between G.I. Joe and Big Jim. I’m sure to them they both look the same. But as a kid I knew one was the real deal and the other was a knockoff trying to capitalize on the success of the other. I mean, perhaps if there never was such a thing as G.I. Joe, then if Big Jim had come along it might have caught my attention. But the fact is, there was a G.I. Joe, he had been on the scene long before Big Jim, and was infinitely cooler. And lets face it, when it came to taking on the bad guys, G.I. Joe was bigger and way more badass.

I never asked for much as a kid, but I would have been happier had my parents bought me a pair of skates, or even a new hat, rather than buy me a Big Jim. As a rule, kids are able to spot the real deal much easier than their parents. All the parents can see is the marketing, and to them it all looks the same. Marketing works on kids, too, but once you’ve had the opportunity to play with the toy, you know what’s real and what’s not.

Bernie Sanders is G.I. Joe. Elizabeth Warren is Big Jim. The marketing firm pushing her is the Democratic Party and my parents are those people who are choosing her for me and then calling me ungrateful for not being happy about it.

But this is worse than what my parents did. Way worse. For starters, I am not a child and they are not spending their hard-earned money on me. I am an adult, and they are telling me what I’m supposed to be satisfied with. And yet they treat me like a child when I reject the present they’re trying to force upon me. Let’s face it, Warren supporters, you are not trying to do something for me, you are trying to get me to do something for you.

Just to show you how much worse this supposed present is, let me extend the metaphor. Suppose you told your parents 13 months out from Christmas that you wanted a G.I. Joe doll, and they didn’t ignorantly give you something you didn’t want, they told you over a year in advance that you couldn’t have what you wanted and that they were going to buy you a Big Jim instead.

There is no rationalization for those who profess to love you to do something like that. The only explanation for why people you care about would do such a thing is that the marketing firm pushing Big Jim dolls is really, really good at what they do. And the only way a marketing firm could be that good at selling a product is they are using really deceptive and evil practices. Sadly, that’s what marketing firms do.

Elizabeth Warren is not Bernie Sanders. She is a cheap knockoff. If she were every bit as good as Bernie, the Big Jim gear would work with my G.I Joe gear, but it doesn’t. If she truly wanted to appeal to Bernie supporters, she would have made sure to work closely with both the G.I. Joe brand and those who have no desire to throw all their existing G.I. Joe accessories into the garbage. Either you are with G.I. Joe, or you are against him.

Elizabeth Warren had her chance to show that she was with Bernie in 2016, and she didn’t take it. She chose to throw her support behind another line of merchandise, which makes me suspect they’re both owned by the same manufacture and are attempting to cross-promote.

Let me be clear: Big Jim was not in the market to further the cause of G.I. Joe, and Elizabeth Warren is not in the race to further the cause of Bernie Sanders. The people behind Big Jim were trying to cut into G.I. Joe’s market, and Elizabeth Warren is doing the same thing.

But let me strike a bargain with the Big Jim promoters who are trying to sell me on a product I don’t want. I know you Big Jim people would be happy with literally anything other than a Barbie Doll. I too have absolutely no interest in a Barbie Doll. But unlike you, if the choice comes down to Barbie or Jim, I’ve come to realize that I no longer have any interest in playing with dolls at all. So if you’re cool with “anyone but Barbie”, just chill for a while. Let the other kids who just aren’t into the newest toy force-fed us by a media campaign figure out for ourselves what it is we can live with. And then go along with what we decide, because we guarantee you we are doing everything possible to avoid getting a Barbie Doll next Christmas. Because while you might see pronounced differences between Big Jim and Barbie, all many of us can see is the big Mattel logo stamped on their asses.

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Random Political Thoughts Part 15

 Corporations value human resources the same way they do natural resources. As they see the potential profit in oil while destroying the trees, so to do they see the potential profit in your labor while destroying your soul.

Trump and Biden have forever stomped out the age-old belief of a correlation between age and wisdom.

I saw a fat guy wearing a T-shirt with a flag and the words "These colors don't run" and I'm thinking "I'll bet they can't even walk very fast."

The difference between our current situation and the leadups to the world wars is that back then you had powerful religious and political powers working for peace.

Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi were generals that shook the world and shifted the course of history, and if their names are not now spoken along the lines of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great, it is because their armies abandoned the fight after their leaders were murdered.

I say today about the Democratic Party what Germany said about Austria during WWI: “We are married to a corpse.”

What’s the biggest difference between Fundamentalist Christians and Fundamentalist Muslims? Fundamentalist Muslims aren’t racist.

The task of the Democrats is to convince people of the insanity of a Trump presidency (easy) while hiding the fact that they share in and often outdo Trump’s craziest policies (also, apparently easy, at least with their base). The only problem is convincing enough independents and progressives of the former while glossing over the latter.

I don’t understand why those who would vote for literally anyone if it meant getting rid of Trump are so intent on choosing a candidate for the rest of us. You’ll vote for anyone other than Trump? Cool, then let the rest of us choose someone we can live with and we’ll all meet up in November.

It’s funny how they say that by doing nothing we will have blood on our hands, but when we actively kill hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, they never make such an accusation.

Corporate media is hoping to bury two birds with one impeachment: Biden’s role in the Ukraine coup and Jeffrey Epstein’s connection to powerful figures in our nation and beyond.

Hard to believe but I once considered myself a liberal because of my distrust of corporate media and the intelligence agencies.

Democrats and the media may say all kinds of things about how the U.S. needs to protect Syrian Kurds, but never once will anyone suggest we stop selling weapons to Turkey.

That the media hasn’t once accused Russia of trying to boost Elizabeth Warren makes me extremely suspicious of her.

If I ever see the Democrats attack Trump on issues I actually care about, I will consider it a glitch in the matrix.

The lesson we should learn from Ellen is that we must learn to get along and not judge those  with whom we share the same class interests.

Climate change is to Democrats what the national debt is to Republicans: an issue to be used to beat the other with during elections and promptly discarded the moment they gain power.

I’d rather know about Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein than I would about his conversation with Ukranian President Zelensky.

Donald Trump is battling it out with the deep state and you want me to choose a side. What side were you on when Pablo Escobar was fighting the Cali Cartel?

George W. Bush is a monster who paints pictures, just like John Wayne Gacy and Hitler.

If my son informed told me he got a gig that paid $50,000 a month sitting on a Ukrainian oil company board, I'd have some questions to ask him.

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Conspiracies: True, False, and Maybe

There are two equally dangerous reactions to conspiracy theories: 1. Ceasing to even consider the arguments behind an idea the moment the conspiracy label is applied and 2. the tendency to believe all of them are likely true once the evidence for one becomes overwhelming. A conspiracy theory is, after all, merely a theory that two or more people conspired for a purpose. People do that all the time. To call something a conspiracy theory should not carry with it negative connotations.

It comes down to which type of conspiracy you are first introduced to, I suppose. If you are first introduced to a conspiracy theory that, after probing deeply, either is proven false or seems to be false, you will afterwards tend to dismiss whatever conspiracy you come across. You will have been inoculated.

Similarly, if you are introduced to a conspiracy theory that seems to hold true after extended investigation, you will be tempted to believe whatever conspiracy theory that is floated about must have some validity. You will have become infected.

The appeal of both is to our intellectual laziness. It is being exacerbated by the information overload that is unavoidable in this age. We are overwhelmed by both theories and propaganda from official sources, and we are left to ourselves to decide which side we tend to believe. And with the endless amount of leads to follow, it is not only convenient but necessary to dismiss facts in bulk, to cling to a mindset, opinion, or group of authorities in order to avoid ambiguity and the pain of not knowing.

The answer to this problem is in letting go of a need to have a definite opinion. Between yes and no, we can add the option of “I don’t know.” Egoically, this is an unsatisfactory answer. But ego has never been our friend.

Just think of what a boon to our society it would be for people to say “I don’t know” when engaging in an argument. True, too often “I don’t know” has been followed up with “and I don’t care”. This is a third form of intellectual laziness, I suppose. But more often failing to engage in debate stems not from disinterest so much as the idea that a debate must have a winner. That’s where “I don’t know” comes in handy. “I don’t know” is you admitting you don’t have the answers, and therefore don’t feel the need to win an argument.

People often say they don’t like social media because of all the arguments. That is precisely why I enjoy social media, so that I might argue with others, many of whom I do not know. It really is an unprecedented tool for communication and education. And despite the missteps many have taken in figuring out the unwritten rules of online communication, I truly believe humans are working their way towards understanding how communication with family/friends/strangers can work. We merely have to let go of rigid opinions in order to allow more facts to help us form a more sophisticated view of things.

In short, we should not hold rigid opinions so much as theories. Theories can be modified whenever new knowledge is introduced, whereas rigid opinions necessitate the molding of new knowledge to conform to biases. The braver course is always in laying out the information you possess and offering it to others. The smarter course is in listening to valid criticism and defending your position when it is legitimate, admitting flaws and incorporating new information when it is not. Not only will you convert more people to your position with this approach, you will make those around you more accepting of spirited debate. And I'm firmly convinced the world will be made better by the collective mind than by a few know-it-alls.

P.S. I'm pretty sure JFK was not killed by Oswald, Russian election interference is a laughable argument, and reptile aliens are NOT running our planet. I'd be pleased to have a friendly argument on the first two, not so much on the third.

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When The Media Says ______, they mean _______.

A lot of people don’t follow the news because it’s easy to get lost in the details. To make matters worse, those working in the news business tend to develop jargon that is unfamiliar to the rest of us. And of course, there are those in think tanks who like to use particular terms in order to get the desired response from consumers of information. With that thought in mind, I have decided to translate newspeak for the average person in order to help them understand what’s going on in the world.

Let’s start with a simple phrase you may have been hearing a lot lately: “Blue No Matter Who”. To the uninitiated, this might be a little confusing. But if we put it through the translator, we come up with “You’re not going to get the candidate you want. We’re going to give you’re a pro-war, pro-corporatist candidate and we want you to be rabidly excited about it.” See how that works?

Here's another one: When they say special analyst for CNN, they mean CIA agent. Same translation applies to special analyst for MSNBC. Got it? Good, let’s try some others. Remember, when they say _____, what they really mean is _____.

Regime ->Any government not doing the bidding of the U.S.

Extreme Left -> New Deal Democrats

Democrat ->Republican

Centrist ->Rightwing

Republican ->Facist

Journalist ->Propagandist

Traitor ->Journalist

Dead Traitor ->Principled journalist (Arjen Kamphuis, Gary Webb, Daphne Caruana Galizia)

Russian Bot ->Anyone arguing against oligarchy or war

Russian Talking Point ->Peace

Putin Puppet -> Anyone who refuses to be a puppet for the Military Industrial Complex

Hack ->Leak

Bombshell -> A shell without a bomb

Terrorism ->Violence committed by Palestinians

Response ->Violence committed by Israel.

Preemptive Response ->Violence with an added adjective.

Measured Response ->An Israeli rocket lobbed at a Palestinian kid throwing rocks.

Provocation ->Standing too close to an Israeli fence.

Proof ->Assertions from anonymous sources within intelligence agencies

Conspiracy Theory ->Logical questions to illogical narratives

Socialist -> Anyone who who is inconvenient to the oligarchy

Socialist Dictator ->A leader of a foreign nation who believes the resources of that nation belong to the people rather than transnational corporations

Sanctions ->Siege warfare

Purist ->Anyone opposed to bombing children in other countries or corporations owning our government

Moscow Mitch ->Corporate Mitch

Failed State -> Country we’ve sanctioned into starvation

I imagine there are a lot more that could be translated. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

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Reflections On 9/11, 18 Years Later

I would like to wish a happy 18th birthday to anyone who was born on September 11, 2001. This now makes you eligible to serve in the war that was in effect started on this day. I pray that you will one day know a world at peace.

Anniversaries are occasions for reflections. On this day 18 years ago, we all were in a bit too much shock to have any kind of perspective as to what happened. Long before a year had passed, we had already achieved the greatest successes we were to achieve, save the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. The Taliban had been taken out of power in no time and Al-Qaeda were on the run. But it seemed the success came too easy, it was all over before we felt properly avenged.

The first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks gave us no time for reflection. By that time we were already being emotionally stirred up in preparation for an invasion of Iraq. We had already taken our eye off the ball at this point. Had we truly wished to root out radical Islamic terrorists, we would have done something to curtail Saudi Arabia’s influence, as not only were Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the 19 terrorists from there, so was the extremist theology that helped shape Bin Laden’s mission.

The invasion of Iraq did nothing to fight Al-Qaeda, nor did it advance our reputation in the eyes of the world. When the Twin Towers were brought down, we had the sympathy and support of the entire planet. When we decided to invade Iraq—and let us not forget it was under false pretenses that were fairly obvious to the rest of the world—people all over the world were forced to confront the fact that they did not know us they way they thought they did. Until that time, I truly believed the world saw The United States as the city upon a hill, the country all other countries sought to emulate. Our position as moral leaders of the planet—earned or unearned—was lost.

On every anniversary since then, we have not really had the time to reflect upon what the September 11th terrorist attack meant to us. Remember, yes, but not really reflect. Instead, we were told by the media to remember the attack, the destruction and the loss of lives. And when they told us to remember, they supplied their own meaning as to what the anniversary of September 11 meant. To them it was a justification for anything we happened to be doing at that point. It justified supporting the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and it justified attempting the same thing in Syria shortly thereafter. And somewhere amid this enthusiasm for overthrowing governments, we found Al-Qaeda and other groups sympathetic to their cause to be useful allies.

For 18 years now, we have avoided reflecting upon the events and importance of 9/11 and looking with fresh eyes at what it means to us as a nation and us as citizens of the world. Time makes us wiser, distancing ourselves from the trauma of the event allows us to look with our intellects rather than with our hearts.

No, the distance is not so great as it is with Pearl Harbor, but 18 years after Japan attacked us, we were able to view its importance in an entirely different manner. For one thing, Japan was no longer our enemy but an ally. 15 years after they attacked us, the dreaded enemy we could call all sorts of names and vent our anger at had joined us in the United Nations, an organization devoted to world peace.

Let’s compare this to Afghanistan. Whereas we were at war with Japan for 4 years, we have been at war in Afghanistan for 18. Whereas Japan’s air force surprised our Pacific fleet and inflicted crippling damage on it, Afghanistan never really had an air force to start with. And yet as late as this month, the United States government was engaging in peace talks with the Taliban, the very people we went to war to overthrow 18 years ago. Not only were we attempting to make peace with the Taliban, rather than demanding total surrender as we had in World War two, the Taliban felt themselves in such a position of strength that they engaged in suicide attacks that claimed the life of an American soldier as well as 11 others, forcing us to abandon our hopes for compromise.

How are we so incapable of bringing an end to the war against terrorism? And how is it that we have strengthened their grip in the Middle East despite our vastly increased presence there? How can it be that a member of Congress can feel compelled to sponsor a bill that makes it illegal to arm terrorists, and how is it possible that such a bill could gain no traction among our elected officials? I’m just trying to be objective about this, but why is it that most everything we’ve done in the last 18 years has only served to embroil us more deeply in a war that seems to have no end?

It’s easy to say the enemy are inhuman monsters that must be stamped out. This is what we said about the Germans and Japanese during the war, but within a short amount of time we were quite peacefully sharing a planet and trading goods with one another. The Soviet Union was invaded by Hitler’s Germany, and as a result lost over 20 million soldiers and civilians to the Nazi aggression. But on the day Germany surrendered, Traumerei was played across the Soviet Union. Think of it, a song composed by a German composer was played in the country that had 20 million people killed in order to show that the time for hatred was over and the time for reconciliation had begun.

When can we declare victory? Do we even know what that would look like? And when will the reconciliation begin, when will a new commitment to peace and co-existence once again seem like the only logical alternative to bloodshed, destruction and hatred? Let us never forget what happened on September 11, 2001, but let us reflect upon it as well, rather than allow our memories to be mere emotional responses that are manipulated by those who profit from a never-ending war. The only logical rationalization for war I have ever heard was that in the end it would lead to a greater peace. 18 years, later, I do not see it on the horizon, nor do I hear even the greatest advocates for war make such a claim.

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Random Political Thoughts Part 14

Corporate media is wringing its hands over the conspiracy theories popping up over the death of Jeffrey Epstein, but imagine how they’d be covering it if he had a Russian surname and ties to important Russians.

Until such time as unified and organized change is possible, individual shows of courage and sacrifice are required. You are neither off the hook because others are not doing their part nor are you helpless. Your individual actions will be the catalyst required to inspire organized action.

I’m willing to bet O.J. finds his wife’s killer before there’s a break in the Seth Rich murder case.

There is perhaps no greater indication of our fall as a nation than to see patriotic merchandise with a Made In China label.

The difference between Republican fascism and Democratic fascism is that Republicans bow before the authority of strong men while Democrats bow before the authority of institutions.

Charlie Daniels said “Benghazi’s not going away.” Guess what, it did. It was just a political ploy and now that there’s a Republican President, nobody mentions it. Just like the deficit.

Democrats hope farmers suffer from the tariffs so that they turn on Trump. That’s their plan. No plan to win them over, no plan to help them. They were suffering under Obama and the Democrat’s only hope is that they suffer more under Trump.

Climate change is the issue by which the Republican Party will eventually be destroyed. And perhaps all of humanity, as well.

How horrible would your life have to be to leave your own country to find work in a chicken processing plant? And how miserable would your life have to be to blame such people for your own unhappiness?

NATO is like the UN except it is based on force rather than cooperation, democratic principles, and a commitment to peaceful resolutions of disagreements.

Corporate media will have you repeating arguments that, had you thought of them yourself, you’d never dare utter for fear of being thought a fool. And if you did utter such ideas in front of others, without the full support of the media to back you up, you would be laughed at.

The lesson to be learned about Julian Assange is that if you lie about war you will be rewarded, and if you tell the truth you will be stuck in the deepest dungeon.

I have no desire to Make America Great Again, I want to Make America Good Again. Great nations fall, while nations that adhere to timeless moral principles endure. It is the difference between vanity and morality.

Until such time as unified and organized change is possible, individual demonstrations of courage and sacrifice are required. You are neither off the hook because others are not doing their part nor are you helpless. Your individual actions will be the catalyst required to inspire organized action.

 The difference between Edward Snowden and Mark Zuckerberg is that one chose to work for the American people, the other, for their rulers.

I can’t believe anyone would prefer to leave a billion dollars to their children rather than a healthy planet inhabited by all the wonderful creatures God or nature created. All of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, would like to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, yet even more important than that is keeping power out of the hands of those incapable of preserving what is so vital to all of us. And what else can you call such an attitude other than a profound mental sickness?

A bully who gets beat down by a bigger bully looks for a dog to kick. The bully is the Democratic Party, the bigger bully is Trump, and the poor dog is Susan Sarandon.

What’s the difference between a Trump supporter and a liberal? A Trump supporter doesn’t miss George W. Bush or hate Susan Sarandon.