Kill Them And Take Their Oil

That's American foreign policy right now. Voiced by Pat Robertson, enacted by the Bush administration. Just clarifying it for everyone.

One People, One Party, One President

Digby lays down the smack on Bush:

He must be thrilled to be back in the saddle, running for president, which is the only thing he knows how to do. And he must be happy to be back lying his ass off in front of his hand-picked enthusiastic crowds. I'm especially enjoying his little historical analogy comparing the Iraqi constitutional drafting process to our own, neglecting the relevant little fact that our constitution left a tiny little problem hanging out that resulted in the bloodiest war in American history --- or the other niggling little fact that the Iraqis are blowing each other up over similar disagreements already. But hey, what's a little civil war now and then?

If I can be so bold as to niggle what Digby said, I'm not even certain that Bush "knows" how to run for President, considering how much electoral chicanery it took to get his ass into office. I'm not sure he "knows" much of anything, really, apart from how to go after people who piss him off. Bush is a statue at the top of a pyramid of power designed to destroy everything America stands for. He is, in fact, the perfect Republican president, a useful puppet who will keep his mouth shut and do what he's told.

And what saddens me is that there are plenty of poor working people out there who support this slob who have absolutely no idea of what's really going on. I will never forget that one guy, a college graduate even, who thought the $300 tax check was the do all and end all of Bush's accomplishments. How much of that $300 is he going to spend in gas money now?

And now I see that the American Legion is making it clear how they stand on the issue: Support Bush or else.. That's where the propaganda has gone since day one. Tow the line or be deported. Give us the oil or we'll kill your ass.

Welcome to America. God help us all.

What If?

From a speech by Sen. Barack Obama:

What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in this new economy? If we made sure college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and told them that there old job wasn't coming back, but that the new jobs will be there because of the serious job re-training and lifelong education that is waiting for them - the sorts of opportunities Knox has created with the strong future scholarship program?

What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so that each of us had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business?

And what if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?

Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turns corn into fuel.

Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open that's on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.

None of this will come easy. Every one of us will have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off bad habits - like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our ecomony and feed our enemies abroad. Our kids will have to turn off the TV sets and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We will have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend the old programs.

(Via this diary at Kos.)

I would also add that we need to start thinking of those workers in India and China and VietNam and Mexico as our brothers and sisters rather than seeing them as competitors. They deserve the same opportunities as any American does to improve their lives.

Driving The Getaway Car

From today's NY Times:

Most Americans believed that their country had invaded Iraq to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but we know now that those weapons did not exist. If we had all known then what we know now, the invasion would have been stopped by a popular outcry, no matter what other motives the president and his advisers may have had.

"Most" Americans were lied to not just by the administration, but by the national press corps, including the NY Times, who intentionally downplayed the actual popular outcry, some of the biggest protest marches ever seen in this country. Even today, supporters of Bush are labeled as "patriots" while people like Cindy Sheehan are derided as "anti-war extremists" by the national media.

Is the Times is just covering it's ass in order to protect their phoney-baloney jobs? Or are they so disconnected from reality by token of their well-paid and prominent positions that they really did just take the administration at its word about their reasons for going to war with Iraq? I just don't know. Either way, they ought to be drummed out of the business of "news", forced to retire in disgrace, because that's what they are: a national disgrace. The Bush administration has ample reason to do what they do: they're crooks who were smart enough to realize that you don't gave to rob the bank at gunpoint, you can bleed the bank dry if you're the ones who own it. But the media has no reason to go along with it, unless of course they're the ones sitting in the getaway car who later claim they had no idea what the people inside were doing.

Making The Right Choice

This was part of a post I got from one of my political mailing groups:

Last year, I was silently applauding George Soros for his activism. Now I'm wondering - if a billionaire can make the wrong choice, how can someone like me know which efforts to support?

I'll make it simple: Ignore any organization that constantly asks for donations and asks for you to volunteer your time, while paying a generous salary to a few at the top. Despite its money, ACT accomplished absolutely nothing with its top-down, elitist approach.

Sign on with any organization which recognizes that you can't pay the rent with your principles. I wrote a brief article about Tammany Hall, the corrupt political machine that ran New York City for decades. How did Tammany last so long? They helped people out. If someone was short on the rent they worked with their landlord. If someone needed food they made sure they got them some. If someone needed a job, they helped them to find one.

Was it bribery? Was it vote-buying? Of course. But to the poor people who would otherwise have been ignored by the elites of their time, Tammany was there to help, and that was all that mattered to them. Ask anyone in the Democratic leadership today, or who heads one of these big organizations for help in that way and they look at you as if to say "how DARE you want to sully your hands with MONEY!" And this from a people making sometimes in the six figures for the "work" they do.

I'm not saying we have to rebuild Tammany. I'm saying we have to stop this bullshit attitude that poverty is noble. Poverty is poverty, period. We've lost a lot of good soldiers because they didn't have the option of being full-time activists.

I saw a post about how David Sirota is starting a new organization, and I predict that one will do the same thing: send out emails asking for money, pay Sirota a really good salary, and accomplish nothing. If Mr. Sirota or Mr. Soros or any of the other left-wing moneybags wants to impress any of us they should hire us. Until then, I'd avoid all these groups like they were the plague.

Dear NY "Flat Earth" Times:

The political clout of proponents of creationism (In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash) is the only reason this "debate" is getting such prominence. Creationism under any name is still a fraud, intended only to lead us down the slippery slope towards the creation of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in this country. If the Flat Earth Society ever gains that kind of political power, would the Times discuss a similar "debate" on the shape of the Earth?

Sincerely,
Joe Vecchio

Open Thread: Show 104

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

Yes, there's a new show up! Woo Hoo!

Listen here. Comment below. Is election reform dead in the water? Let me know!

Elections, The Blogosphere, And The Future

The other day I stirred up a minor shitstorm with this post about how useless polls are considering the amount of electoral fraud that's been going on. For those of you who missed it or don't feel like clicking the link, let me repeat what I said to Markos in specific and to everyone else in general:

I hate to keep dousing water on your poll parade, but what exactly have we done about election reform that makes anyone confident that they won't just steal another one?

How many more times will we be told to "get over it" when polls show a clear Democratic victory but the "election" shows a 51% GOP win? How long before they decide they can get away with giving themselves a supermajority and really tear down the Constitution?

Fuck the polls. Fuck them to death, they're meaningless. Stop bragging about Hackett's 49%: I have news for you, 49% of the vote is 0% of the power. Take all the energy you're spending watching these pointless polls and fix the goddamn system. Then you can write about the goddamn fucking polls.

Not exactly the most eloquent way of putting it, but then I never claimed to be eloquent, and this issue, in my opinion, is far too important to worry about stepping on a few toes. How To Discuss Election Misconduct is important, but it's only one part of a far more important issue: How To Fix The System. My beef with Markos isn't with him personally, it's about the fact that after five years, we're still not past the talking stage. And talking about polls while not doing anything substantial about fixing the problems is an exercise in futility. Worse, showing these numbers builds up our hopes only to see them crushed on "election" night.

How many of you out there know that most of the New Deal programs that we take for granted now were simply expansions of things that had been done before on a smaller scale, mostly in New York City? That the people who FDR placed to run the new organizations were already war-hardened political veterans, experienced players in their fields? They not only had the ideas, they had the know-how and the courage to try them out.

That was then, this is now. I don't doubt the sincerity and the ability of anyone here, but I don't see a lot of real accomplishments. What have we really done from the point of view of actual political power? More to the point, what are we doing on any level as far as election reform goes? Certainly there are states and counties that are run by an overwhelming majority of Democrats, have any of them bothered to implement any of the ideas set forth by one of the numerous election reform groups? Has anyone even pressured any of them to try? Not one that I'm aware of. Which means it either isn't being done or no one is bothering to publicize it: either way it means we can't make any real difference in what is going on.

As I mentioned, I support what the group Defenders Of Democracy (DOD) wants to do: establish the paper ballot as the official ballot of record. Have the ballots counted by hand, in full public view, at each polling place when the polls close. Establish a clear and public chain of custody for the ballots to prevent tampering. Let's find a few test areas and get them to implement this system. We can do what the DOD does: they go to every local seminar about elections with some paper ballots and a ballot box and hold an election right there asking people whether they would prefer machines or people to count the vote, demonstrating how simple and effective the system can be. This gives us a foundation to work on, an example to prove that it can be done on a small scale, and therefore on a larger scale. No more machines. Get it right the first time. And as far as I'm concerned, anyone who is against having the most accurate, fraud-free elections we can possibly have is truly anti-American.

Almost as much as the lack of action as far as election reform goes, the general reaction I got to my post on Kos is what depresses me. The internet has proven to be a powerful tool for organizing and raising money (Speaking of which, here's a shameless plug for my tip jar). But unfortunately, it's also amplified the old nature of progressive politics. We still wind up falling into little cliques and arguing among ourselves. Some people saw my post as an insult to Kos, and by extension, to themselves. There are all too many people out there in the blogosphere more concerned with their own sense of self-importance than they are in fixing the serious problems we have. And there are all too members of the Democratic leadership more concerned with their standing than they are with the well-being of their constituents and their country. This is too big for any of that, and it's time we started facing up to it. You don't have to like me, I don't have to like you. But we'd better recognize the nature of the threat we face.

And what is that threat? Paul Krugman lays it out for us:

Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we've seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.

Mr. Krugman is being polite, of course. Saying the Republicans would be "tempted" to rig the election in '06 is like saying that a junkie would be "tempted" to shoot up if they saw some stash just lying around. Face it, they've been getting away with it for the last five years, why would they stop now?

When Bush stepped into the White House, he and his administration were already discussing ways of removing Hussein from power. This we know from several sources. With 9/11, the temptation to use the political power they were given was there, and they jumped on it. Think about it: they willingly and happily started a war that killed tens of thousands of innocent people the moment the opportunity presented itself. If they were willing to do that, and for the most part we know they were, why then should we think they wouldn't bother to rig an election? And if they were capable of killing thousands of Iraqis, they are perfectly capable of doing the same to us, if the opportunity presents itself. Does that prospect frighten you? It should. I don't want to see Kos wind up being one of the most important prisoners in the concentration camp.

Never forget: to the Bush administration, the Republican leadership, and their financial backers, we don't even count as human beings. Their cavalier attitude towards the deaths of innocents in Iraq and the soldiers they sent to kill them is proof of that. They must be stopped, they must be held accountable for their actions, and they must be prevented from rising again as a political force. I for one would gladly sacrifice the political career and reputation of any blogger, activist or politician in order to accomplish those goals. And so should we all. The sacrifices of the past and the lives of the generations to come demand no less of us than that.

Ad Fucking Nauseum

Kos has yet another useless post on national polls. Markos, I hate to keep dousing water on your poll parade, but what exactly have we done about election reform that makes anyone confident that they won't just steal another one?

How many more times will we be told to "get over it" when polls show a clear Democratic victory but the "election" shows a 51% GOP win? How long before they decide they can get away with giving themselves a supermajority and really tear down the Constitution?

Fuck the polls. Fuck them to death, they're meaningless. Stop bragging about Hackett's 49%: I have news for you, 49% of the vote is 0% of the power. Take all the energy you're spending watching these pointless polls and fix the goddamn system. Then you can write about the goddamn fucking polls. [mutter mutter curse]

Update: Yeah I know, I just pissed a lot of people off with that post, as always too many people would prefer to play kissy-face to the big bloggers rather than face the issue. Reminder: when you're talking about political POWER, election fraud ought to be issue number one. We can discuss politics all we want, but we can't fix the system if we don't have the authority to do so, and I guarantee that there are plenty of policemen and military members who would be all too willing to enforce some of the laws the other side would love to pass. Think there aren't a few who would love to make Rush's suggestion that they deport us into law? If they have the political power to do so and the cops come after you, are you going to DISCUSS it with them?

Arbitrary And Stupid

A friend of mine in a discussion group wrote the following about high school:

Also, enough with the arbitrary restrictions ..... and other such bullshit designed to make people fall in line and learn to accept how things are instead of trying to affect what they don't like. Rules like that are not only idiotic, they give the impression to young people that all rules are arbitrary and stupid.

Funny, I always thought all rules were arbitrary and stupid. That's always been my experience, anyway; especially in the workplace, which is the "adult" version of high school. All my life I've felt that we live in a pretty arbitrary and stupid society, and I've pretty much convinced that we're not going to get any better, at least in my lifetime anyway. It reminds me of this post by Billmon:

...It's still hard to escape the conclusion that the American people have had, generally speaking, plenty of opportunities to learn the filthy truth about this administration and this war -- that is, if they were actually interested in the truth, which many of them (up to 51%, judging from the last election) apparently are not.

What the health of the Republic requires, in other words, may not be a new crop of leakers and whistleblowers, or a fresh young generation of Woodwards and Bernsteins -- or even a more independent, aggressive media. What it may need is a new population (or half of a population, anyway), one that hasn't been stupefied or brainwashed into blind submission, that won't look upon sadistic corruption and call it patriotism, and that will refuse to trade the Bill of Rights for a plastic Jesus and a wholly false sense of security.

Anyone willing to bet on how long that will take? Or if we'll blow each other up before that happens?

A Look At The Future?

I don't usually do this, but considering the events of the last few years, I thought it was important to reprint this editorial from the Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper, in full. Will we see a similar editorial from a major US paper like the NY Times in the future? As the Japanese and the Germans well know, the lessons of history are often painful. How will we handle it when we fail? I wonder if any of you reading this will be alive to find out.

EDITORIAL/60 years after:Why did World War II fighting go on for so long?

Monday marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Setting aside the question of how and why the conflict was entered into, on reaching this milestone, we wonder anew why the fighting was not brought to a conclusion a full year earlier.

This question first comes starkly to light when we look at the huge number of the war's victims. During the eight-year period from the start of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to the end of the fighting with the United States and its allies in August 1945, 3.1 million Japanese died in this conflict.

That tally grew sharply toward the end of this period, with nearly two million lives being lost during the final year alone.

What was taking place on the war's frontlines and within the Japanese government during this crucial time? Victory or defeat clear much earlier

In June 1944, U.S. military forces landed on the island of Saipan. Subsequently, Japanese troops were soundly defeated in the fighting there and during a battle at sea off the Mariana Islands.

There was no strength left to mount an offensive, and thus no means to prevent squadrons of B-29 bombers from using Saipan as a convenient base for launching air attacks against the Japanese mainland.

In all conceivable military terms, the war's outcome was determined at this crucial juncture.

Around the same time in the European theater, allied forces landed at Normandy in France, turning the tide so that the defeat of Germany, Japan's only real ally at the time, was beginning to be glimpsed.

Some members of Japan's military were also becoming resigned to defeat as well. Certain staffers at the wartime Imperial headquarters wrote in an internal bulletin: "There are no prospects for any major reversal of the current situation."

One of the authors in fact suggested to Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was also chief of the general staff at the headquarters, that maneuvers be made to bring the war to an end.

Tojo reacted by ousting that official from his post and reshuffling his Cabinet to try to stem the growing sense of crisis. In his earlier days as the army minister, Tojo had issued a field service code that demanded Japan's fighting men choose to die rather than surrender when faced with defeat on the battlefield.

Thus, even as the situation continued to deteriorate, Tojo found the idea of conceding Japan's defeat unbearable.

Nevertheless, senior statesmen close to Emperor Hirohito joined forces and pressured Tojo's Cabinet to resign. Finally, that was achieved in July 1944.

Yet even this development failed to put an end to the war, with Japan's foolishness entering a truly drastic stage. The rout of Japanese forces in the Philippines led to half a million deaths.

At length, the military turned to the outrageous tactic of kamikaze suicide attacks, with large numbers of young men being forced to die for no good reason. From both the military and national perspective, this can only be described as a path of total and senseless self-destruction.

In February 1945, former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe proposed to the emperor that the war be ended, stating to the effect that, "Defeat, while deplorable, is inevitable." Even this failed to move the leadership to take decisive action.

In hindsight, it seems plausible that at the very least, if Japan had conceded defeat at that point, the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, the Battle of Okinawa from March to June of that year and other tragedies could have been avoided and lives saved.

We can only wonder what the leaders were thinking even as severe damage continued to mount.

Shinobu Oe, an expert on military history, also shakes his head at this question. "I just don't know," he admits. A legacy of incredible shame

The key question is just who was then acting as leader of the government, and who was actually setting the course of national policy. After Tojo's fall from power, it is unclear exactly who took on the responsibility for guiding the country's fate.

Reading through the testimony of politicians and military people compiled in historical records on the end of the war and in other sources, we learn that ranking statesmen met secretly at each other's homes. None of them, however, had the courage to bare their gut feeling that the war was lost.

They reportedly did little more than continually sound out each other on ideas about how to end the war. In retrospect, it is a legacy of incredible shame.

As it turned out, the government only surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan that made it clear that by then, the nation and its war strategies were in total collapse. It is dubious to label this decision to surrender a strong "resolution".

After the surrender, the politicians and wartime military leaders were suddenly unanimous in their insistence that "the war was undesired."

High-ranking officials, who in exchange for their elite treatment and safe ensconcing in comfortable quarters, are responsible to speak their own beliefs at meetings that determine national policy.

Ultimately, the statements of wartime politicians and military leaders amounted to unequivocal confessions that show they did not live up to their duty. What can we say to the souls of the millions of war dead who lost their lives because of such sorry leaders?

In the final analysis, the cowardliness of the war era's leaders is starkly clear. There is simply no other explanation for the events that took place in that horrible last year of the war.

True, the military police cracked down on anti-war movements, and a fanatic group within the military adamantly refused to admit defeat at any price.

However, the government ministers, military generals and others in the upper echelons had the power and the responsibility to control the zealots. Regrettably, there is little if any evidence suggesting that serious attempts were made to curb such transgressions.

And granted, censorship was rampant. But newspapers also toed the official line and served up propaganda. The press must take this grave lesson to heart. Was that era truly unique?

Following the war, there was no real opportunity for the Japanese people themselves to track the responsibility of the wartime leaders. The reluctance to probe events can be blamed in part on the fact that pursuing accountability would have uncovered episodes that could have tarred the investigators with the same guilt.

Immediately after Japan's surrender, Prime Minister Naruhiko Higashikuni advocated making a "national confession" of war guilt by all Japanese people. While this call for blanket confession most likely failed to gain much support, it was a convenient way to deal with the situation. In terms of timing, this also may not have been the best chance to establish war responsibility.

Today, we live in an age characterized by freedom of speech. Yet speaking out against a superior at one's company can still result in cold treatment, or even being fired.

Compared to 60 years ago, it seems logical and coherent arguments can be made today wihtout receiving unreasonable reactions.

The question remains: Have we bid farewell to the national tendency to put off painful decisions even when there is clear recognition that the road we are on leads to steadily mounting damage?

Public works projects remain stuck in the same old tax-wasting ruts. Many companies continue to go belly up, the upshot of reckless management practices. While the impact of such events pales in comparison to war, there are numerous cases and practices ringing troubling and familiar wake-up calls.

It is never easy to boldly stand one's ground. Having the strength and the courage to make tough decisions, however, is the key to creating a truly affluent society.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 14 (IHT/Asahi: August 15, 2005)

Stop Clapping

Avedon Carol talks about the most recent spate of election fraud being carried out in broad daylight, yet we don't seem to grasp how important this is and what to do about it. As I have said countless times before, what do the polls matter if the elections are rigged? Yet we seem to lack, maybe not the political will, but the political savvy to prevent it. The old ways of organizing don't work any more. If the elections are rigged, then what difference do the get-out-the vote programs make? If the elections are rigged, what difference does it make how many protesters there are? If the elections are rigged, how can we ever hold those responsible accountable for their actions? And most important: if the huge mass of American citizens who are currently indifferent to all of this remain indifferent, how can we return control of the political process to us, so that it accurately reflects the will of the people?

I get chided from time to time for being a little too apocalyptic. I've said time and time again that the powers that be aren't going to give up power without a fight (and I don't mean a political fight), and I don't see any reason at present to think otherwise. Frankly I think the time for a political solution passed when GW Bush took office, possibly earlier than that: when the Republican leadership was taken over by corporatists and religious fanatics, and the Democrats stood by and let it happen.

If I seem like a pessimist, I think I have some good reasons to be. Karl Rove is still doing his work. So is Tom DeLay. And despite the clear evidence of the numerous crimes that have been committed by the Bush administration, no one who has any real power to do so, or to sway public opinion, is suggesting that he should be impeached. In other words, despite all our work, things are still pretty damn gloomy.

We tell the Republicans that "clapping louder" is not going to make the situation in Iraq improve, but we don't seem to understand that the same works for us, too. I remember in the weeks before the 2004 election saying that Kerry (or any of the Democratic contenders, for that matter) would never take office, yet I was yelled at for being "negative". I hear the same thing from people when I say that we won't re-take the House of the Senate in 2006, and we won't. Barring a miracle, it will stay pretty much the same as it is right now. Some of you out there may not want to hear it, but if you ignore the facts you're as bad as the right. And while I certainly admit I can be wrong (and I hope I am, of course), you have to admit that my track record up till now has been pretty good.

Anybody who reads my blog regularly knows that I'm not really a pessimist, I believe in the long term that things will get better, but I believe that things will have to get pretty bad before the conditions for that sort of improvement will take place. And if there are any out there that still doubt the seriousness of this struggle, let me remind you of a few things:

People who issue "hunting licenses" for those they disagree with are capable of anything.

People who think torture is perfectly acceptable regardless of the results are capable of anything.

People who fully support going to war and killing thousands of people, based on flimsy evidence and under the guise of "safety" are capable of anything.

Being somewhat of a student of history, I know that things were far worse for people in the days before the New Deal. But things were different then: the New Dealers had a program, and there were no Diebold machines to make election fraud so efficient. And now we have a public that has been raised on the idea that everything the government does is evil. Under these circumstances, how then can a political solution even be suggested? These are the issues we have to deal with, and we're a long, long way up that famous creek without even a boat, never mind a paddle.

I don't know how, when, or even if we can get power back. But the minute we do we have a lot of work in front of us. When FDR came into power he had to deal primarily with domestic issues, now the US economy is part of a larger, more interdependent global community. The right thinks it can deal with international issues with military force, the left still doesn't understand that the economic future of America depends a great deal about the rights and salaries of working people in Mexico and China. The answer has nothing to do about what's right for the Democratic Party, but what's right for everyone, everywhere. It's time we on both sides stopped clapping and started facing reality.

A Message From God

FYI: I received this in an email. Some of you may have also received it. I'm not a particularly religious person but I happen to like what it had to say so I'm passing it on. Don't read into it anything more than that.

Hi.

God here.

I know you're all busy over there trying to deal with everything you have to deal with; I know how you feel, I have a lot to deal with myself. Of course I've been doing it a lot longer than you have, and there's no such thing as "retirement" for me. But that's OK, because you know, you're you and I'm me, and we each have to handle our own situations in our own way. That's how it should be.

With everything that's been going on lately, I thought I'd drop a note to let you know how I feel. But you have to understand, it's a little difficult for me to do that because...well I don't mean to be rude or anything, but hey I know a lot more about how the whole thing works than you do. Imagine you trying to explain to an ant how to build an airplane. It's not that ants are stupid or anything: they're pretty clever for having such tiny little brains, but it's just beyond their comprehension, you know? That's how it is for me, talking to you.

I'm not trying to sound harsh. Considering how young you are you've made some amazing accomplishments. That whole going to the Moon thing, I mean, wow, that was impressive. But all the technology, that's only part of it. You've done a great job in making better lives for yourselves in that sense, but if you want to know the truth you haven't really changed that much since you started this whole thing you call "civilization". You're still spending most of your time fighting with each other over things like land and food and, well, me. Back in the early days, it wasn't such a big problem because there weren't that many of you and you weren't having that big of an impact on the planet. Heck, for the most part you didn't even realize you were on a planet. But things are different now. There's a lot more of you out there, and the planet's not getting any bigger, if you get my drift. Trust me, it isn't easy to get the environment just right to support life, and it doesn't take a lot to foul it up.

And if the population thing wasn't bad enough, you've started to get a grasp on how things work: Nuclear power, genetics, that's some pretty heady and dangerous stuff you're dealing with there. I'm not saying you have to give it up, but you really need to realize just what it is you're dealing with. I could use an analogy to make my point like I usually do, but I think you understand.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while I love you and care about you, I think it's time you started to grow up. Stop worrying so much about what I think and start focusing on more immediate problems. There's a lot of things I can't tell you about the nature of creation because frankly you're not ready for it yet, but I'll tell you this: you're not going to get any closer to me by killing people who don't agree with you about who and what I am. Take a step back and be honest with yourself about what you're doing and why. Don't feel you have to impress me to win my favor, you already have my favor, yes even if you've done some evil things. I'll always love you even when I'm mad at you.

Remember, I'm not going anywhere, and I'm still keeping an eye out for you. But let's make it clear, I'm not taking sides. The problems you have are of your own creation, not mine. It's up to you to deal with them as best you can. I'll give you all the emotional support you want, but if I go down there and start throwing my weight around you're not going to learn anything, and learning is a part of growing.

-God

Bold New World

There's a reason, well, several reasons, that I rarely venture into the specific goings on of the political scene. I mean, even if I weren't tied up with personal issues, I wouldn't have been saying much about the Plame/Rove thing or the Novak eruption or any of the numerous scandals and other events that are going on. One reason, of course, is that so many other bloggers do a much better job of that than I do, and I don't see any point in duplicating these efforts. Nor do I have the time to delve into these things in detail anyway.

The big reason that I don't get too involved in all that stuff is because, as I see it, so much of it is a given anyway: I mean when I hear people talk about the things Bush does or the things Rove does or how idiotic the press is, my attitude is always, "this surprises you?" I mean, it's not like these guys ever had a stellar reputation to begin with outside of their own cult following. I just don't see the need to belabor the point that the Bush administration, the leadership of the Republican Party, and their financial backers are the greatest threat to global peace since the rise of fascism eighty or so years ago. Despite their rhetoric, there's nothing bold or new about what they are doing, just the same tired old story we have seen since the dawn of human civilization: just another excuse for some people to kill others to get something they want.

This doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't focus on these individual issues; taken as a whole they provide a foundation for doing what eventually needs to be done: removing the assorted neocons, religious fundamentalists and corporatists from power, holding those responsible accountable for their actions, and building a world where their kind will find it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to regain power ever again. And we're going to discover that doing the first part, as difficult as it seems right now, will be easy compared to what must come after. Because winning the battle is less important than winning the war.

The American Revolution was founded on a very simple premise: that the government exists to serve the needs of those governed, not the other way around. At the time, it was a radical idea. The liberal/progressive view of this took that one step further: that the government has not only the responsibility, but the duty to look after the least-protected of its citizens. That, too, was a radical idea. Both of these political revolutions challenged the established order and presented a truly bold, new way of seeing the world. Each was a step forward, ushering in a new level of achievement for the human race. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. And now we have to build on that foundation and take it to the next level. As our Founding Fathers and the New Dealers did before us, we need to start thinking just as boldly.

A global order is coming, parts of it are here already. What form that global order will eventually take is still uncertain; It may become, as it is progressing now, a corporatist state run by people whose only interest is increasing their own wealth and power and where corporate/economic rights are valued greater than human rights. It may become a world ruled by a government which is more interested in maintaining its power than it is in protecting the rights and freedoms of its citizens, stifling any innovation that threatens it. Either of these, or a combination thereof, are distinct possibilities. Neither of them will benefit anyone but a few.

But it could be a world where happiness and success aren't determined by how much money you have or how many people you have power over, and that's the world I'm sure most of us want to live in. In order to get there we have to start thinking in bigger terms and in ways we haven't thought about before. We still have to take the small steps we need to get there, but it takes a great leap in thinking just to begin. The new world order the neocons and assorted fundamentalists are trying to build just won't last, it never does. Their thoughts are only for themselves and the immediate future, they aren't concerned with anything beyond their own families and lifetimes. We should think in terms of a greater human community, for centuries to come. When their world falls, as it will, we have to be ready to fill the gap.

It's time we began to look past the idea of nations and start looking at the Earth as a whole: its ecology and how we can best balance human needs and the planet's health. It's time we started to discard the relics of culture that have held us back for millennia: racism, sexism, ethnic hatred, and religious fundamentalism have no place in our new world. We must not only reject them for ourselves, we must also reject others who embrace them when it suits our own interests. We have to throw out the idea that one nation, one culture, or one religion is superior to any other and recognize that we are one community of humans working together.

It's time we started to re-think the entire idea of money, perhaps in terms of an economy where money as we know it doesn't even exist. Remember that money is an illusion: it's real only if we believe in it. In theory it is supposed to represent a person's contribution to society as a whole, but I think reality has proven this to be utterly false. The hardest working among us are usually the least compensated. This has been true for ten thousand years, it will never stop unless we start thinking of the economy in completely different ways. We have to do it without suppressing the innovative spirit that gave us our greatest technological advantages. We have to do it and still make sure the necessary work that needs to get done gets done. Who sweeps the streets? is the question I always ask. That still needs to be done regardless of whether someone gets paid for it or not.

We need to reaffirm our commitment to science because as the guardians of our world, we can best serve it by understanding how it works, but we must balance that with the thought of something greater, an understanding that science is only a part of life, and the quest for life's meaning goes beyond chemistry and biology or computers. Life's value cannot be measured by a yardstick alone, nor can it be found in the rituals of organized religion. And those of faith must recognize that The Word of God exists in many places, not just in books but in the very structure of the universe.

There's more, of course. What I am suggesting is merely scratching the surface. As with all bold ideas the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. But I believe in what FDR told us, that all we have to fear is fear itself. Conquer that, and we have won much of the battle already.

And finally, we need to accomplish this without bloodshed, using force only when all other choices have run out. Self-defense is the only excuse for military action, period. A society built on blood cannot last.

All too few of us understand the enormous undertaking this is, and how long it will take to accomplish, if indeed we even can. Because a great deal of what needs to be done means that we need to try and change human nature itself, a seemingly immovable object we must hurl ourselves at. We did not begin this struggle, nor will we finish it. It has been played out before us for thousands of years, it will be played out long after all of us have passed on. Like it or not, the demons of our past will be with us always. We are still prisoners of our history, our culture and our genes, but those bars can be broken if we work together to do it. It will be our most difficult task, but if we succeed it will open a new door in our history, leading us to new challenges in a brave, new world.

I'm Still Here!

Just in case anyone out there thinks I have forsaken you all, I just wanted you to know I'm still out here. Cathy is improving slowly but surely, she may be back home in a couple of weeks. My technical issues have been partially solved: I managed to reinstall the OS, but unfortunately it deleted a lot of files and I am also having to reinstall my programs, which I hate doing. Once I get it all back to normal, however, I will get it all backed up on a bootable disk so it won't happen again. My thanks to Mike and Heather and everyone else who helped out getting me back up and running.