Welcome to “Who Wants to Be President” America’s newest reality show where we bombard contestants with insipid questions from a panel of intellectual pigmies. Watch these men and the obligatory woman pander to the audience and dance around the questions in the hopes of advancing to the “Popularity” round. This initial phase consists of several “ranking” rounds wherein the contestants vie for position and funding potential.
Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country.
I hope some of you can remember this sentence. It is an exercise we all learned it in typing class. It really is too bad that the meaning of this little saying seems completely lost in modern life; and especially in politics. Of course there are a great many other things lost in modern politics not just the power of a simple sentence like the one above. We have lost our direction and passion for this country as well. We have lost our focus and our drive. We have lost our national identity. We are a nation of individuals all clamoring for their personal way and insisting that we are no longer Americans… We demand to be hyphenated – Americans!
Regardless of your job, we all work harder and play less. We have more of everything except time and money. We live stressful lives walking on eggshells and hope none collapse under our weight. We look hopefully for leadership for a path out of these trying times. We look for answers and all we receive is more questions and restated problems. Like most of you I think we are well aware of the situation in America. We all know what’s wrong; we are looking for someone to help us find the answers and solutions to these problems. We are looking for someone to lead us out of these dark days and into the light of reasonable action. We know there are solutions and that these solutions will require our combined efforts to solve them. It will take ALL of us to solve them – not just the working class, but the wealthy privileged classes as well.
I am tired to the bone of those that use God as a lever to rationalize and justify their actions. Not even Cecil B Demille killed as many people as we have in God’s name. Some religions like Islam continue to subjugate the believers with Shariah Law which places men well above the status of women and condone all manner of atrocities in the name of this cult. Women are subjected to beatings and murder regularly. In Pakistan 80% of the women are beaten and one is murdered daily. All that is required to convict a woman of heresy are two men to accuse her. One woman is in prison awaiting hanging for arguing with two such men. They accused her of heresy. She awaits her fate.
I have been pretty quiet for the past several weeks thinking through many of the things happening in the world and our current situation in this country and in the world. Our globalization makes it imperative that we live our lives as members of a larger collective and less as individuals. Individualism is a right that we all have and should enjoy personally, but as is applies to the collective we need to be mindful of our impact on those around us.
As we wander through this life we impact everyone and everything we encounter. We are no longer an island adrift in a sea of self indulgence and secure in our own little world. We are like the rest of the world connected by our global political and financial decisions. We have become one world. As we consider our direction as a country and society we must be mindful of our affect on others; not just in America but in the world around us.
We no longer have a choice. We are told what to accept and what to allow. Special interest groups dictate our available choices. Our Government is no longer interested in our desires; they now tell us what to like and what to accept. We have no choice.
I want to preface this document with a few personal statements.
1. I don’t care about your sexual preferences
2. I don’t care about your religious preferences
3. I don’t care about your ethnicity or national origin
4. I don’t care what car you drive or about its color
5. I don’t care how much money you make or how you make it
6. I don’t care how smart you think your children are or where you choose to school them
7. I don’t care how much hair you have or don’t have
8. I don’t care about your personal life… At All!
I am extinct. At least my way of life, morals, ethics, and business methods are extinct. In order to survive I must adapt. I must become what I never was; and act as I never did: or I will be extinct.
My epiphany happened today, actually this afternoon during a meeting with an adversary. I have the tire tracks from the bus to prove it. I had hoped that this person would be an ally but it was not to be. Try as they might, my supporters could not save me or pull me from the path of that bus. In their defense there was nothing they could do except to sacrifice themselves on my behalf. I could not ask and did not expect it.
In past several decades I have wondered what has happened to America and the World we live in. It seems that stupidity and insipid behavior have taken over where logic, common sense, and rationality once reigned. We live in a litigious and licentious society with no boundaries and certainly no sense. Everything is out of whack and there seems no possibility of our return to a normal safe and courteous world. We are run amok. We are stuck on a sand bar in an ocean of inane laws and ignorant actions. Our ship is solidly aground.
During a friendly hello call to Paul, he mentioned that oil was a topic of real concern for him. I know Paul he’s a level headed fellow with a great guitar boutique in Cave Creek, AZ. Paul like all of us is suffering from the economic catastrophe. He is a true news hound so when he told me that the price of oil is expected to hit $200 a barrel because of the unrest in the Middle East, I took notice. I knew it would go over $100 but not that high. Being the curious about this I did a bit of research on the internet. I discovered a site that had information about the top 15 exporters of oil to the US.
One of my dreams for as long as I can remember is to own a sail boat and sail the world; just my wife and I enjoying the solitude and beauty that this endeavor can offer. There will be hours and hours of peace; just the wind and the water and the boat. We would have plenty to keep us busy. We would have great conversations about our lives and the friend we’ve enjoyed. Maybe we would even bring them along on parts of the odyssey.
I was having an all too infrequent chat with my friend in Hollywood last night. We caught up on the usual stuff about spouses and cats and work. When we started talking about my therapy, our conversation took an interesting turn. As you may or may not know – or even care, I play music for therapy: self prescribed. I find that after a week of dealing in corporate America I desperately need a distraction and release: and this few hours on stage is what I really want to do. So I play music in a “Biker Bar” in Cave Creek, Arizona on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Maybe it’s not the world; maybe it’s us. After all we are not the guardians of world politics. We are not our brother’s keepers. Maybe these people are not really our brothers. Do we actually believe that after millennia of physical changes, and cultural and racial evolution, we are all the same? We are all made from the same genetic soup and stuff, but that’s really where the similarities end. We differ greatly in our approach and value of life. We view the world through politically different eyes. We are culturally disparate and separated by our religious preferences and beliefs. I think this makes us all very different.
I just read the news brief on the Earthquake in Pakistan. It was an 8.2 – big quake. In order to lend credence to the story the reporter quoted several local people, basically eye witnesses. She said that one “texted” her. I would expect that a journalist would have at least a rudimentary command of the language she was writing; putting this in print cheapens her as a reporter and certainly sends an interesting message from her editor, who ever would allow this to appear in print must be a real intellectual and linguistic pigmy.
California’s Supreme Court just allowed the search of cell phones as personal property and without a warrant. This happened recently in a case involving a drug purchase from a police plant which caused the arresting officers to search the text message file of the detainee’s cell phone. This was taken to the Supreme Court in the People’s Republic of California (PRoC) who allowed the search as legal. It turns out that the person arrested was involved in another drug related deal so this was added to his list of crimes. The PRoC sees this as absolutely legal. This sets an unbelievable precedent for the rest of us.
No, this is not a misprint. I think we are now living in a Flea Market Economy. The idea for this post came from a friend of mine, Chicago Johnny Vegas (his stage name) who during a conversation this morning mentioned that there is no such thing as the “Free Market” economy any more. His comment struck a chord with me. He’s right. We now live in the world’s largest “Flea” market. American is for sale for the best discount and cheapest price. This is our new mantra and it is now the way of the economy. Everything we do is driven by cost and profit. The only way to survive now is to make whatever financial arrangements you can for the lowest possible price.
On October 26th, 2001 a 1500 page document that no one had read was unanimously adopted by Congress and enacted into law granting our Government unbelievable power. It is called the US Patriot Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. This Act made it possible for our government to ignore the US Constitution in the name of national security. It usurped our rights and freedom.
The Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve; it is a Loan Shark operation to keep America in Debt. First, let’s look at what the Federal Reserve is and how it came into existence then we’ll look at why this is important to them and a really bad deal for us.
There has always been a “Central Bank” (Federal Reserve) to fund, you guessed it… WAR. The Kings of Europe usually needed money to fund their activities to rid the world of infidels or to gain more territory for their kingdom. If you were a King and needed to fight the good war for Christianity but didn’t have the funds to field an army for the local “Big Bank” would loan the money for the activity.
Obfuscation: n. the act of making or instance of making something obscure, dark, or difficult to understand…
Obfuscate: 1536, from L. obfuscatus, pp. of obfuscare ”to darken,” from ob ”over” + fuscare ”to make dark,” from fuscus ”dark.”
We all believe in our hearts that we live in a Democracy. That’s what we are taught in school, and college, and universities, and church, etc. We are living the American dream in the best Democracy in the World. Right?
Well, I’m going to burst your bubble… None of us live in a Democracy. In fact, no one has lived in a Democracy since the Greeks BCE (Before the Common Era – or – Before Christ – BC).
