Flip Flopper Extraordinaire

Elitist Mitt Rmoney has been bagged so many times as a flip flopper. There are You Tube montages of him changing his tune, sometimes in less than a single day! His most recent and famous of course, that on the issue of getting Bin Laden. Now of course he backpedals to claim he would, despite saying he wouldn't. He would have let Detroit go bankrupt, and would have ignored Bin Laden, like Bush did, and he wants to be President? I wonder what country he thinks he's in? Talibanicalstan?

"Human rights?" They Lie

Pam Geller is a liar and a coward. So is the doof that presents with her, I believe his name is Robert Spencer. They have no interest in human rights. The attached link tells the story. Not only are they not interested in equal human rights, they are completely afraid of transparency. They simply want to brainwash the gullible fools who would attend this event, and hence they block media presentation. They are afraid of their message being understood by the masses. It's these types of people who we need to protect America from. The are a Reich, a religious reich at the very least. They are ignorant, know nothing of history, or ethics as they will gladly lie to press their agenda forward. Once they put their belief on their belt buckle, you will know their true character. It hangs around their neck now, so it's headed that way.

Despite How Much Things Change...

They remain the same.

I first started this blog, which has been relatively quiet for 2 years, back in 2005. And politically not much has changed. There is still plenty of partisan bickering, and very real solutions are not being created.

The grass roots, what real people are doing, is what is changing this country. Not the astroturf movements like the Tea Party, with a very defined agenda and plenty of string pullers and few donators, both one in the same.

Take the issues around food. Obviously there are several. People are tired of fast food. The movie Super Size me comes to mind. So what has happened over the last several years? CSAs have popped up all over. No government program there. people are gardening a lot more. And small farms that don't use GMOs or chemical are proliferating. Empty lots in urban areas are being gardened. This is all people power, doing it by themselves, for themselves.

Let's take money. Occupy is a movement that is hardly organized. Nothing centralized anyway. And what occurred last year in the fall? Billions were moved out of big banks and went to credit unions. People taking power over their own money.

That's grass roots movements. Another area under the radar is community wealth. Employees owned businesses, growing quietly and steadily into big numbers. There are more EOB workers than union members in the US now according to Democracy Collaborative.

In that regard, much is changing. The shell is the same, but the Arab Spring that is still happening in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Spain, Russia, and other places was a good sign that there is a consciousness shift occurring. Look what happened to the radio empire of Rush Limbaugh. And then those sights got turned on the corporate legislative lobby ALEC. The money is drying up because of demand by normal citizens that are saying, we aren't taking this stuff any more. They want alternative energies. They want healthy food. They want a system that perpetuates health and not illness. They want to stop the control of our government by special interests with deep pockets.

Despite how much things stay the same, they change. It's imperative. In 2012, the shift that is occurring is away from the elite to the extraordinary common. There is no more room for business as usual.

The Demise of Sports

This is hardly news. Many people have recognized that sports went away a long time ago. That is recognizable by the difference between watching the football stars of the sixites score a touchdown as to today. Back then, the guy doing the scoring just dropped the ball and headed to the sideline. No dance, no piling on. Half the team was on the sidelines already. Today, you watch some fool prancing like an idiot before his team mates mob him even though they're still down by 21 points. It's also what you see when some doof makes a tackle and acts like he just won the Superbowl even though his team has three wins all year long. Three events this week have led to further aversion of sports for me.


One was the hiring by the Seattle Seahawks of Pete Carrol, after they fired their head coach after one year. Now perhaps I am missing some details here. But the Seahawks were in a losing season when they announced that their current coach, Mike Holmgren, was retiring. They also announced their next coach, Jim Mora, who would have to wait  a year to get to do that job. So Mr. Mora inherited a team that had a losing season. Towards the tail end of the first year of Mr. Mora's job, way down in sunny California, it seems that the situation at University of California, home of the vaunted Trojans, was a little dysfunctional. There seemed to be some improprieties concerning the treatment of some of the football players, which means that victories and bowl wins get stripped from their records, and the program loses scholarships and recruiting privileges, and basically gets a black eye that forces potential athletes to look elsewhere. And the coach during the time in question at USC? Pete Carrol. The same Pete Carrol that the Seattle Seahawks hired after firing Jim Mora after one season. The same Pete Carrol that led the '94 Jets to a 6-10 record. The same Pete Carrol that had a 27 and 21 record after three years with the Patriots. And the first year was his best year with 10 wins. It went downhill after that. So the Seahawks think that a coach with 5 years pro experience and a less than stellar record will save the day. As long as they can play the drama-savior scenario to separate fans from their money, they will. Serious rebuilding seems unnecessary. Fans are grumbling here in Seattle, and when talk of the possibility of Mr. Holmgren returning started trickling through the media pipes, then there was hope. Holmgren ended up in Cleveland, where there are "fewer layers" between President and owner of the team. Now we know why he turned down the Seattle job. So the grumbling in Seattle resumed. The team had record losses. So the management, whose job it is apparently to field better profits, decided that Mora was the problem. Now maybe there wasn't any chemistry between the players and coach. So be it if that's the case. One year though is hardly enough to develop a winning program. So Seattle will pop for the remaining years of Mora's contract which is reported to be about $12 million dollars. Nice layoff huh?


Another event that transpired was the pulling of a gun on a team mate by Gilbert Arenas, a pro player for the Washington Wizards. In a locker room altercation, or jest, he pulled a gun on a team mate. He had four of them on him apparently. For protection. Which I frankly find hard to believe. A guy paid what Arenas makes ($111 million dollar contract), doesn't drive a used car into the seedy parts of DC to go home after a game. He likely drives a very nice car, or someone else he pays to be his "posse," his "entourage," does. And he goes home to a very nice, well patrolled neighborhood of nice homes. Definitely no hookers and crack dealers hanging out there. At least one would think so. He has the money for it. So he gets caught pulling a gun. Says he's sorry to the public, met with law enforcement people, was criticized by civil rights leaders, all that. Claims he understood the gravity of the situation. And then, "It happened last week in Philadelphia. Every team has its pregame rituals: some chant, some dance, some box or high five. With his career and even his freedom hanging in the balance for a misadventure with guns, Arenas stood at the center of his team's huddle, made his hands into pistols, and pretended to shoot his teammates." Sounds like a real nyuk nyuk moment huh? So the NBA Commissioner suspended him. I think he should have outright ended his career. In Tennessee, four of their college basketball players were arrested, caught while drivbing around with not just pot, which is no biggie in my book, but also with fire arms. What I see happening is the transference of the thug mentality into the NBA. Instead of young men like these learning to make better decisions, and avoid those situatiuons where you need a weapon for protection, they seem  left to their own devices. And so what started as the donny brook that Indiana and Detroit got into a few years back, has now turned into brining guns into the stadiums. This from some of the richest people in the country, and again, who seem to lack that element of sportsmanship but indeed manifest much of the show boating and swagger.


The third incident involved my favorite sport. Mark McGuire, who famously, and unexplicably hit the single season home run record homer while all of TV land was watching and all sorts of celebrities were on hand, including Hank Aaron, admitted what everyone else already knew: that he used game enhancing drugs, which included during the season in which he broke Aaron's record. He came clean so he could land the job as the Cardinals hitting coach without baggage.


Will MLB pull his records? Will they strip him of anything? Demand that the Cardinals not hire him? Not likely. It will be up to people like me to contact these organizations and say we are done watching. This isn't about sports any more. It's about the money. Has been for years. For McGuire it was about developing stats for a fatter contract. For Pete Carrol it was about breaking the rules to make sure that he could field a winner and in the long run, retain his ability to get a fatter contract. It's why stadiums are now named after corporations. And for all three of these people, it shows that character, sportsmanship, plays a relatively small part in career choices. Breaking the rules, cheating, hey, no big deal.  Well, I'm not a fan of that any more. My money and my time will go elsewhere.



So I say good-bye.

 

Blundering Idiots?

One person commented that the GOP has become a sorry cult of a party.

Here is a story. There are three links connected to it. I encourage you to read those as well, all short for the most part. What it will reveal is that politics in this country is becoming a circus. This GOP candidate makes comments on the cybersphere. Oops. He doesn't think that this stuff is saved or recorded? Then when people respond to his comments, he tries to delete the remarks. Oops. Overt admission of trying to be something you claim you aren't to save a budding political career.

What all this points out is that as a man thinks, he speaks. This candidate is a confessed Christian. He should know his own Bible teaches that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Already this man is at odds with himself and his own religion. As a man speaks, he acts. Then his deeds become habit, and those habits become character. The GOP is truly becoming a circus of immoral fools.

So regasrdless of the party, remember that trying to erase the past is not advisable. The mouth reveals the heart, and so what sort of policies one can expect from the candidate, regardless of party affiliation. It's past time to begin electing those who keep their religion as their own business, who don't take money from big business, and don't have to worrry about erasing their past comments.

Right is Wrong, and The Left Sold Out.

Here is an interesting story, when sided with this. It reveals how truly deep the lack of understanding is of the right wingers of not only what Americans want, but of Christianity as well. The rank hypocrisy aside, this sort of revelation makes mer wonder at times what level of intelligence conservative voters operate at. It apparently has little to do with issues that matter. It has little to do with fact. In the very season of their alleged Saviors alleged birth, they have no problems lying or misrepresenting the truth.

For example, compare this staement, "Fox News even said that senators voting against reform are doing so because they understand “the true meaning of Christmas,”with, oh, something from another cinematic non-reality, The Christmas Carol. Voting against health care reform sounds like which stage of Scrooge? Ah, but Fox isn't to be slowed down by facts or reality. And of course, the right wingers have the ONLY understanding of Christmas, which is the implied meaning of their statement. Also, let's compare Matthew chapters 4 aqnd 5 with this statement, "Conservatives have been aggressively trying to portray health care reform as an assault on Christmas and Christian values." I think we might find some interesting contradictions.

And what of the instructions in Romans to submit to the governing powers that be, becasue they are established by God? None of the right wing rhetoric sounds submissive to me.

Not that I think this bill is anywhere close to Steele's misrepresentation, "the Senate version is the best Trojan horse possible to hide a true single payer system." If that were the case, then Progressives and liberals would be rather happy. This bill hardly does anything to wrest control from the insurance companies. But Republicans don't care about democracy, or the average voting citizen, as they have amply demonstrated by obstructing this "reform" bill, SCHIPS, EFCA, minimum wage laws, and so forth and so on. Democrats have demonstrated that they are also subservient to the paymaster, and will sacrifice the hundreds of millions of citizens so they can retain their campagin contributrion sources.

Informed in the Age of Information

Americans must pride themselves as being informed. As we have seen over the last eight years, information isn't as accurate as we might think. Most of those who still believe that Iraq has/have/or had weapons of mass destruction are watchers of Fox News. Already that should tell us something. Watching news? So just what does it mean to be informed in this Age of Information?

First, I will focus on what I think is the foundation for being informed in these times. Let's just look at the word itself. In-formed. What is happening inside of us relative to the talk radio or web sites or television sources we take in on a regular basis? Do we get angry? Sad? Do we rejoice when the other side has it's fanny end handed to it? Do we cringe in fear? These are all formations that are being built in us by this torrent of words. It is the foundation that is being built because there is no other claim on the property of my mind, which includes my emotions. And frankly, if that is happening, it isn't so I can live there. It's so someone else who has an end that may be contrary to mine can live there.

So what should that foundation be? How do we build it? Knowledge on it's own is no guarantee of a good life, or a virtuous one. Look at the well educated people who have not had such moral lives: Ted Haggard, a pastor. Former Representative Mark Foley of Florida. Even on a local level most communities I have lived in have an eccentric or alcoholic that as it turns out was one of the better educated minds in the community. Knowledge, the accumulation of information as facts that resides in memory files has no guarantee that a successful, meaningful live will be lived. The foundation needs to be something else, and the basis of the founding of this country seemed to point at part of what that foundation was to be. It's right there in the Preamble to the Constitution. "We, the people..."

What? "We" is actually a significant word here. It directly implies that "we" are a community, and all that being a community implies. It means that we are living in proximity, and that any disaster that befalls us, affects us all. That any bounty that affects us, affects us all. That if we are going to progress as people we need to do it together. Some of the shared visions of "we the people" are justice, general welfare, defense, all with the idea in mind that we can pass on to our following generations the blessings of liberty: which not only include monetary prosperity, but the sense of safety and protection that justice and welfare generate. And that means that we are inclined towards equanimity and love of our fellow man. And frankly, that seems lacking these days.

Equanimity means that we live capable of balance. In another viewpoint, it means to live beyond ignorance, anger, and hatred. That's the foundation we are after. Being able to live free from ignorance, hatred, and anger. And those three buttons, are indicators to us when we aren't living that way. Ignorance stands at the root of it all, and the common expressions we see these days are hatred and anger. When these expressions emerge in us, it is time to step back and ask what ignorance is driving this? Which is a very courageous step, because you need to be willing to accept that what you believe may not actually be true. However, by dispensing with these obstructions to moral life and beneficial knowledge, we can eventually begin to develop a love for our neighbor.

Sometimes it takes a disaster for us to get beyond our partisan beliefs, be they religious or political. Then we realize that we truly need each other. What is sometimes lacking in humans is the sense that they are just a part of an ecosystem, not the rulers of it. We all need each other, like cells that need each other. In essence, what the grass gets from the soil the cow gets from eating the grass which we get from eating the cow, or vegetable. Providing of course we eat grass fed cows. Much of what we consume is erroneously fed corn. Cows haven't evolved to eat corn. The point is that if the earth is poisoned, or stripped of nutrients, then the grass will be empty of those life giving nutrients, as will then be the cow, as will then be us. Despite being the food producers of the world that we are, America's health problems are legion. We have apparently missed something. We are needed by each other, and need to be in balance with the ecosystem in which we live. That sort of moral life is the foundation of being informed beneficially.

Then we can actually get to building on this foundation. The basic in-forming of a life has been laid, and in all actuality, it might happen alongside the intake of facts. We can in-form the mind with those facts that are necessary, and actually be able to discover many of those that are divisive and some that are flat wrong. The source is irrelevant. A radio pundit, or TV pundit that lies on his broadcast program won't hesitate to in a book. Yet pundits aren't experts. And maybe even experts are wrong. I am currently reading through the tome titled Everything You Know About God Is Wrong, edited by Russ Kirk. In the essay by James Haught about skepticism, I found a statement about His Holiness the Dalai Lama that was flat wrong. He claimed that when the Dalai lama dies, his being flies into a baby boy being born somewhere else. Anyone who's seen a documentary about how the Dalai lama is selected, or read anything about reincarnation from the Tibetan Buddhist viewpoint knows that Haught's encapsulation, meant to inspire skepticism, is incorrect. The lesson? Learn to read with an open and questioning mind. Mr. Haught also picked on many other religions in his essay, so how do I know that any of his statements are accurate? Mr. Haught is a news editor and author of five books. And still wrong. There are plenty of excellent sources available, and most of them aren't on the web. They are contained in books. And even so, one needs to remember not only the foundation, of how to stay unattached to information, but one needs to be able to ask questions of any material one reads. For example, I am also reading Micheal Pollan's book, The Omnivoire's Dilemma. It is an excellent book. Yet in the chapter discussing vegetarian issues, a comment is made that death is different fro an animal than a human because we humans imbue it with emotion. I ask the question, "Based on what source?" There is no footnote, no caveat. Just the flat statement that it is different. And that is based on the premise that man is rational, beasts are not. Yet again, based on what. Because Buddhism does not refer to humans as human beings entirely, that are classified as sentient beings. And so are beasts. Which makes them is some ways similar to us. For all we know these beasts do communicate with one another, and to say an animal can suffer, and yet not die like a human seems to me to be arrogant as well as ignorant. So I can reserve that iudea of mine. I admit, of all the book, one statement that I could conflict with. That to me makes for a good author and one I can trust.

Being free from attachment allows one to read conflicting views. I was challenged on this point by a radio head, because he is widely read, including conflicting viewpoints. And as much as I did it out of an ego motivation, I bought and read The Conservative Mind, by Russell Kirk. And it was informative on a fact level. I have also read Tom Paine's works, and I find that he makes statements that today would be questionable, but again, as in the case of Micheal Pollan, I find little to argue with except tfor minor points, which makes his a trustworthy author.

Let me finish with this. A two pronged approach to informing yourself. First, get outside and know the world that exists around you. Touch it. Know the plants and animals that live where you are. Know your neighbors. This is an expereintail knowledge, and is vital to information. Know the sky above your head. All this inormation is readily available for the self educator. Second, when you do read something, do so with a pen, dictionary, and high lighter at hand. Mark those margins! Ask questions, feel free to doubt, to question, to agree with. Because in this two pronged approach, you will find that you can enlarge your own vocabularly and hence your thoughts. You will also see where the street and Ivory Tower conflict. The resolution may be for you to work out and share with others(back to the foundation), or it may not exist. The end result will be that you are truly in-formed.

The Liars Keep Lying

I borrowed that title, yes I did. From legally challenged yet now Minnesota Senator Al Franken actually, but it's relevant to today and one of the guys that Franken picked on in his book: Rush Limbaugh. Rush, ever the elitist, oh, you don't think so? Are you aware that last year Limbaugh's bonus was $100 Million? And that he was flown to Britain so he could legally do an interview for Cigar Aficionado and give his opinion on Cuban cigars? Limbaugh is about as regular guy as Limburger cheeses is an orange. Remember that when you listen to him call auto workers stooges. Back to the point though.

Today on CNN they aired a clip about Limbaugh prattling on about wanting Obama to fail. Limbaugh's rant included the statements that he doesn't want government in charge of the banks, medical care, this that and the other thing. And my point is this: The conservative media is still lying. They are still willing to tell lies to deceive people and create division in our country. They are still unwilling to admit that they are wrong in their policies.

Let's parse Limbaugh's statements. For example, Rush is worried that Obama will take over the banks, and they will fail. Here's a classic case of missing the train, because the Republican/conservative administration he so staunchly supported and lied for for 8 years beat Obama to the punch on this one and with the TARP money already took over share of banks and mortgage companies late last year. The Republicans began the socialization of the American investment banking industry. Another factor plays in here. Part of that is Limbaugh's listening audience. it isn't young. It's big, and demographically on the edge closer to leaving this place rather than joining it. It seems he can play fast and loose with the facts because either no one of his audience notices, or they don't care. They overlook the facts to hang onto their ideology.

Now just imagine for a second if the Bushies had privatized Social Security. It would have been wiped out in the deregulated market the Bushies helped create to sell the stupid things they created that were not based on anything tangible. Then think where many seniors would be right now. But Mr. Limbaugh would want it that way. He supports the unregulated free market that has twice crashed under Republican oversight. But never mind that, he gets his bonus for telling his audience otherwise.

Let's look at the amazing success of health care in America. You know, the health care system that had more people uninsured in 2008 than in 2000. You know that system. It's the free market system which is supposed to correct all these problems if we deregulate it and let the free market do it. If you want to hear particular horror stories, well, just start reading some foreign news sources. The Guardian for example tells a story once in a while. For now though, I'll just skip the heart rending stories. Let's just look at some of the facts. Like the fact mentioned above and the one that reveals that our health care cost per capita is the highest on any industrial nation. I suppose industrial is starting to be a bit of a stretch for America. It only makes up about 12% of our economy. But that's for another day. Look at it this way; has your insurance coverage expanded to cover more procedures at a lower cost, or has it reduced coverage at a higher cost? Ours at work has. If nothing else, the coverage doesn't change, but a double digit price jump occurs every year.

Meanwhile, profits in the health care industry, particularly among insurers, have jumped, and CEO pay packages certainly aren't shrinking. But we'll look at capitalism another day. So with all this money coming in, how is it that this free market system has produced such a failure of coverage, let alone health? It's well known that even something like infant mortality, America isn't even in the top ten of the nations of this planet. Childhood obesity is an epidemic. Type 2 diabetes is escalating rapidly. Heart disease isn't slowing down because rescue worker technology is able to catch some of those that would be statistics sooner, and saving their lives. Profit in the health care system is predicated on keeping costs low. Costs are payouts for surgeries, procedures, and recovery. And long term recovery from diseases like cancer are really costly. So how do you keep the costs low? Well, I'll let you imagine how. On the other hand, sickness allows the pharmaceuticals to keep pumping their industry into your bloodstream. So there isn't enough incentive for them to promote your total heath. it's best for them if you are sick enough to require their services and products, but stay away from the catastrophes that really cost them money.

Since we've seen how ineffective the free market system is in providing health care, why not expand on a government program that already exists? It's called Medicare. Every worker, a shrinking pool in this country, pays into it, just like Social Security. Make it a single payer universal care program. Utilize some insurance industry truths to work for Americans. Like the truth that a bigger risk pool reduces premium levels. Imagine a risk pool of 300 million! And take the profit factor out of health care. Under a single payer program, the incentive then would be to promote health as a way to reduce costs. But Rush wouldn't like that. He would probably rather see the free market provide care, as it has allegedly done for many decades. After all Rush would say, it's the best health care system in the world. And I'm sure the million or so laid off last November and December would heartily agree. And under a universal single payer system, they could. But not now.

None of this matters to Rush and the other conservative media pundits. They will continue to misrepresent the truth because they are Machiavellians, admittedly or not. They think the end justifies the means, and that it is better to govern by fear rather than by love. And that is how professed believers in traditional family values and the God that supposedly is the source of them can act so shamelessly contrary to their own morals.

The liars will keep on lying.