Economic Recovery

When I think about economic recovery, I think back to the golden years under Clinton: Booming economy, happy people everywhere buying, selling, working and class jumping. New money, the poverty gap growing slower. In general, peacetime prosperity. Such a dream remains alive, but only in John Kerry this year.

George's economic recovery shows all the classic symptoms of a depression: you and me getting poorer as his buddies guard their wealth and get richer. We have never worked more productively than we do today. Corporate profits are up some $250+ billion since early 2001. I would agree that this number sounds like good news. I suppose it is, until you find out worker income is down $40 billion. Looks like the corporations have experienced one hell of a recovery. I personally find myself slaving away at a menial job for a pittance. There are just no well-paid jobs waiting for us so that we can experience the recovery. These thieving corporations and their owners are hoarding all the money. The giant sucking sound has gotten louder these past few years, has it not?

The same thing happened during the Great Depression. The old money just packed up and left until the New Deal. They stimulated economies all over the world but ignored the States. Then they came back and effectively dodged the responsibility of having to pay for the recovery. A bit like spending the Vietnam War playing jackass in the Texas Guard, making sure the corner bar remains profitable.

It will take nothing less than a miracle to put our Nation back together. I really didn't care for Kerry just a few months ago. I was an avowed Deaniac. The scream did not bug me. It was so great! Why not a moment of levity? He could have practiced, sure, but that would not have been spontaneous. I want a candidate with a fire in the belly. The desire to set things back on the track of progress boiled over in Dean. He was angry. By channeling his energy into the campaign he domesticated his anger and put it to work. His war cry was harmless. Except to his campaign. Oh well. Oops. Make a note of that for later.

Even the Gilmore Girls (WB show the wife loves) made jokes about it. 2 jokes in this weeks episode -- the opening skit punchline and the Easter Egg fiasco inspired another! That's great stuff kids. Howie, if you're listening, I just want you to know that we still love you. Take a cabinet post.

The future holds grim things for us if GW steals another four. Vote early and often for Kerry.

Taking The Week Off

I was off to a strong start. Quite a few posts, every couple or few days. Then I stalled. I paused to evaluate what I have done and what I plan to do. I listen to Air America and check many news outlets often, including IHT, Guardian, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, Hindustan Times and even Aljazeera. (I sometimes don't quite understand their comics, but Osama always sends his tapes to them, so I suppose their the ones to look to for that type of information.) I always have something to say about the news, am pretty keen on direct actions and want to write.

I have my free time all wrapped up in my obsession. Damn media. They're always trying to pull a fast one, so if you want to be on top of things, you gotta consult the web. For hours. Get all sides of the story and look for what wasn't said. God only knows what's really going on, and She ain't talking. This world has gone to hell in a handbasket. And everybody's a liar and a thief. It would be easy to ignore, but I prefer to take a proactive approach to information.

At lunch and on weekends I'm reading Living to Tell the Tale. Great book. You should read it. He is a true mystic wielding a pen. All Gabby's stories live in this tale -- you'll travel to Macondo, hear the truth of Death in the Andes and learn some revealing secrets about life and writing. This blog began as a conversation I had with his book. I'm still not even halfway through, but I like to take my time and really digest the book.

The original plan was to do recordings. That didn't happen. So when a colleague told me about Blogger, Gabby talked me in to typing. Takes forever, but I guess it has worked so far, except that you might be my first visit. If you are, tell your friends. I plan to someday learn a thing or to about building a web site and do something more with my ideas.

Getting back to my evaluation, I decided I should keep going. I looked at other blogs, like A Stalker's Guide to Me. That was actually disturbing to read and think about. Other blogs are similar-- diaries and such. They don't turn me on so much.

That's when I slacked for 10 days. Couldn't quite shake the feeling that I did not get the point of this. Then I heard something that gave me new hope. Last weekend, I heard a story on NPR that said political and social commentary were hot topics as well.

Seems I've gotten over myself and have delved into new territory with this post. Speaking of this post, that's about all I have to say on that. Uh-yup.

Queer Marriage

My ma endured a queer marriage. Thank her lucky stars it lasted only 15 years. I've seen enough queer marriages in my lifetime to know that denying legal sanction to homosexual marriage will not unqueer marriage in our country. A true Patriot stands for true freedom. Patriotism for Our United States and Homophobia do not mix.

I think all homophobia results from the secret fear that one could be homosexual - like the lesson of American Beauty. Perhaps no one else got that. I have been known to draw connections that make no sense to anyone else. Either way, the burning pain of hating one's self manifests as hatred toward others.

Biologically, a genotype expresses itself in terms of phenotype. Your genotype is your genetic code. Your phenotype is how you actually physically are. Applying the same principles to human behavior illuminates the relationship of homophobia to self-loathing.

Psychologically, socially, and espescially spiritually, we all have a similar endowment at birth. Otherwise we are not human. Then, as we begin to experience the world, our understanding of things develops within the borders of a paradigm, given to us by our parents, family and society in ever expanding circles out to all of humanity. Certain beliefs in certain paradigms can develop into what I will call unhealthy behaviors, to be as tactful and general as possible. Homophobic behavior would be one of these unhealthy behaviors.

Therefore, as I propose it, gay bashers and haters do so out of shame and repression with respect to their own sexual feelings. The sexual tension they feel toward their own gender can only be expressed as their paradigm will allow. They hate them. When the self-loathing builds to the point they can no longer restrain themselves, rather than doing the healthy thing and having some cathartic gay sex, they do perverse and violent things.

Most are not gay, just deathly afraid because they were taught that being gay is bad. Afraid to understand the glorious nature of the sensual self outside of a puritan sexual paradigm. Afraid to confront the burning question that all of us ask ourselves at some point: Am I straight or gay?

I say shame on you parents who develop your children into bigots. You are blinded by your fears. You cannot impose your fears onto the rest of us. And we deny you your ban on gay marriage. So do the Founding Fathers.

We have rights not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. I believe this is one of those rights. No where in the Constitution does it say the legislature has the power to legislate against the right of the people to marry members of their own gender. As far as I can remember, the pursuit of happiness is one of the three modified Lockean rights our Revolution was based upon. If gay marriage offends you, go crawl under a rock and stay.

Diane Linn shows us all that we have leaders who can see beyond the shroud of hatred into a future where we have finally purged Our Great Nation of legalized bigotry.

Do You Have A Congressional Representative?

Most of us here in the US do. Each state has a minimum of one. California has more than 50, the most of any state.

California used to be a place feared by the Bush administration. Now, he's giving more attention to the Governator's state. It used to be my state, until I found the paradise which is the great northwest. But I still care about CA. And as such, I wanted to share some thoughts about Bush's tactics in California.

I heard today that one of the energy companies that bilked us for, I'm using hyperbole here, gadzillions of dollars, has been sued for damages by the justice department. I think they're seeking 10 to 30 million dollars. The estimate is that we were extorted to the tune of $30 million. I estimate it to be in the gadzillions.

The point of this is, GW wants to show he cares about California. Look what he's doing about the energy crisis of 2002. He is going to get us our money back.

Sure, maybe a few cents on the dollar! What about when we asked for his help when the whole scheme began? He let it happen! Probably because more of us voted for Nader than him! With the money the energy companies gave him to let them rape us, he can now act like he cares and will bring us justice.

Well, how about some more Bush brand justice? Maybe you should just let the military eliminate some more of those pesky endangered species infesting California? Certainly, this is a joke? It is not. We just closed hundreds of bases a few years ago. Now Bush wants to expand again? Not on my dime!

This is our money he's wasting. He cries foul because we want a public review and take him to court when he acts against our wishes. Welcome to the good old U.S. of A. He obviously has zero regard for public money or he would have spent 4 trillion dollars we do not have. We need to protect the resources we have left. Those resources are what's left of our endowment from our Mother. Milk-vetch comes to mind here. What is milk-vetch, you ask? Well you'll never know if George has his way. He plans to push legislation through Congress that will exempt the military from environmental protections, so they can bomb the milk-vetch in the Mojave. Milk-vetch is a predatory rodent which kills people in their sleep, so good riddance I suppose.

Maybe when we're safe from the milk-vetch, all will be right in the world. I'm sure we can drown it in nuclear waste and PCBs, fight it back into submission with missiles and the Grandmother of All Bombs.

That would all be well and fine, except that the milk-vetch is a rare plant which only grows in places the George Bush's army wants to bomb in the Mojave desert.

We have blocked his energy bil (and a few others) and we need to block this one. Soon we will have Kerry installed, and we can begin reversing some of the damage done by Bush, but in the meantime, don't roll over and play dead. Important things will happen between now and the time Kerry takes his oath of office. If we pay too much attention to Lyin' Condi and the 911 Boys, we'll miss the opportunity to begin working for the future now.

I just wanted to mention the snowy plover, also. Oregon needs to thank its government for forcing the issue of the plover. What gives us the right to trample this wonderful avian creature to extinction just so we can ride dune buggies from California to Washington? I'll tell you what. Nothing gives us that right. End of story.

And call your representative and say how much you abhor the death and destruction spread by the Bush legislative agenda.

Building A New Nation And Neglecting An Old One

Almost every day, the Bush administration reiterates its intent to withdraw from Iraq on June 30. While you must applaud the steadfast nature of Bush's moronitude, you must not live in denial of the fact that the our current foreign policy will lead to more and larger scale attacks around the world by violent extremists who to no particular nation. Like say, Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or whoever else we seek to conquer next.

Our citizens are in the midst of a wholesale slaughter in Iraq. We cannot, anymore, hope to see a swift end to this bloodshed. We all know it will continue. Possibly for decades to come. It took almost a half cetury to rebuild western Europe after WWII. Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Middle East, Africa, many nations today yet struggle to find some semblence of stability. Isreal has yet to see peace.

So George thinks he can get it done in three months. I, personally, think not. our motives are suspect and our effectivity has been negative. At last report, we have been attacked more times since 9-11 than before. And by we, I mean the entire world, because, except for those poor guys stuck in the space staion, we're all in this together.

When the U.S decided to engage Iraq militarily, we opted to go the route of a rogue nation. Our aggressiveness and willingness to lie to the United Nations yet hinders our efforts at regaining credibility in the eyes of the world. We went at it alone and overthrew a sovereign nation. We have their leader in jail. He now rules in this exile, at least with as much authority as we have there now. We have shot up his sons and violated the Geneva Convention by broadcasting pictures of their corpses to all corners of the known universe. Now, his country still fights the war against the army which drove him into exile. By comparison, we have established what I, as an armchair analyst, would guess to be about 0% control of the situation.

Perhaps I figured wrong, but I always thought that at the end of a war, the killing was supposed to stop. Maybe we are not slaughtering the same numbers of Iraqis as we once were, but more Americans and Europeans seem to be kicking the bucket every day. And not all of them are 'training mishaps.' Or perhaps they are.

It just mishappened that George W weaseled his way into office. They trained under the demented teutelage of the Bush admninistration. At the very least, they got their marching orders from him. Right about now, it's unfortunate. We are wasting lives. I thought we were supposed to care about lives. I suppose I am wrong.

He wanted to go to war, Bush did. Obviously, nothing could stop him. He lied to the world, lied to us, he's reduced Iraq to rubble and we have nothing to show for it but higher oil prices. For everyone who thought we were going to war for oil this is a big let-down. If this war was about the oil, we truly failed miserably.

And what amazes me is how many of us really buy into his sack of crap. I talk to people all the time who love GW. It blows me away.

Some people believe it is the will of God that GW is president and doing all this nutty stuff. So they accept it. Chalk it up to blind faith, I suppose. I hope they wisen up once they get burned enough times. Be careful with your faith. It will blind you.

I cannot comprehend how anyone fails to see it. Even those blinded by their faiths. Maybe it is our destiny to erase our existence off the face of the Earth. Not in my lifetime, I hope.

Why can we not embrace Iraq as a revered place in western culture. We need to nuture her and protect her, for years to come, until her people can live in peace.

Furthermore, aren't we all supposed to be descendant from the oldest of Iraqis? What do you think Abram thinks of all this? Maybe he should have known what he was getting into from that start.

I think I would not want to worship a god that asked me to kill my son. Not even as a joke.

And what came next! His son a cheat, grandsonssole their brother into slavery...and look at us now! Liars and slave traders. Not much has changed.

Stay tuned for some thoughts about the solution.