Supporting the Troops

While Facebooking my life away today, I came across one of those gimmicky "support the troops, they fight for freedom" posts, and something struck me. It struck me pretty hard, so hard in fact that after making my remarks to the post itself I simply had to put it down somewhere else. Before we go any further, it is important to clarify that I have no problem with anyone who signs up to be in the United States Military. As an advocate of freedom, and freedom of choices, if that happens to be your career choice, you are as entitled to is as I should be to be able to write subversive material and make a living off of it. My issue is that as much as the troops may go through during a time of war, there's not a single one of my rights or freedoms that have been fought for or won by the US military. I guess there's a little bit of gray area there for Washington's army in the Revolutionary War, but aside from that really, never have my rights or freedoms been "protected" by the US military.

I realize what I'm saying is going to be incredibly unpopular, and if I get any feedback at all, it will probably be negative. But this needs to be cleared up. My freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, as are my rights to freedom of and from religion, and my freedom of assembly; my right to bear arms is guaranteed by the second amendment; I will never have to house members of the military in a time of peace or war thanks to the third amendment; I am protected from warrantless searches and seizures of property on account of the fourth, and the list goes on. These rights were not established by the US military. These rights were painstakingly hammered out by delegations from thirteen separate states. They were upheld by effective and powerful courts. In fact, America, land of the free and home of the brave was such even before 1945. 1945 is significant because that is the year that Harry Truman signed legislation that put into place a full time standing army, something that was "un-American" for the first hundred and fifty years of this country's existence. Prior to 1945, was America not free? I mean, there was no standing military, so does that mean that there really wasn't any freedom? Cause I'm told that I have to thank troops for my freedom...

Clearly, in 1945 there were groups of people that were less free, and since then there have always been abuses by our government of the liberties of marginalized groups. Socialists and Communists, some of the hardest working and most dedicated Americans were marginalized and pushed practically out of society, even though if it weren't for them we would not have labor laws, work safety standards, and child labor laws. Not the Military. Environmentalists fought our government in the 1960's and 1970's to get better environmental standards so that people my age could enjoy some of nature's beauty, and not have to deal with unclean air and unsafe water. Our government has done much to marginalize them. Female activists fought long and hard to guarantee the right for women to vote - not the military - the American Civil Liberties Union has fought the government on a huge number of issues that guarantee your freedoms and mine - not the military - the list goes on and on. We can all agree that freedom is good, liberties, rights, the pursuit of happiness, these are all wonderful things, but I want to make very clear that our government has been opposed to almost every one of the advances in freedom in the long history of this wonderful country. Now this is not a rant to call out against any government, or even a call to arms to "shrink" government. But it is important to recognize that if we are going to give credit to groups of people that sacrificed for our freedom, I think it only fair to actually credit those responsible rather than simply manufacturing some phony justification for our sometimes questionable military involvement around the world.

Simply, I am thankful for the working class, underpaid, overworked social and political activists that have come before me to make this land a free land for you and me. - not the troops -

thank you and have a nice day

Health In America

Today I turned on Morning Edition on NPR, and they highlighted a story in which the 'tea party' folks plan on putting together a number of demonstrations in view of their local representatives against the recent advances in the health care debate. Now just to be clear before we begin, I should point out that I am in favor of a single payer health care program that would utterly destroy the health insurance industry that exists today. I believe it to be absolutely immoral for someone to profit from someone else's injury, sickness, or misfortune.

Their concern focuses not on the plight of the millions of uninsured Americans, but that their precious dollars may go toward the benefit of someone they see as inferior or undeserving. To a point I can sympathize with their view, if you are not willing to go out and try to make a living, you don't deserve to be rewarded for your laziness. They fail to realize, or admit that the people who would benefit are the working class who on a daily basis wear themselves to the bone and still struggle to get by. The people who have to live paycheck to paycheck and life is still uncertain. There is already a health care program, fully funded by their and my tax dollars that takes care of those who are not working or are considered to be in poverty. Their beef is with people already covered by a government program. To me, this makes no sense to try to punish those who work hard, and reward those who profit from another's injury.

They make arguments that the quality of our doctors will somehow be diminished if tax dollars pay for health care, rather than huge insurance companies and HMO's. Large insurance companies and HMO's that systematically deny patients coverage due to preexisting conditions or try to get out of covering patients because a recent development in their health is expensive to treat. The fundamental problem is that the insurance companies are for profit organizations that are more concerned with their bottom line and showing a higher profit than the year before than they are providing quality care for their customers. A system that is designed to treat illness and injury without concern of profitability would without a doubt be better for those in need of help.

In my opinion, the compromise currently being debated does not go far enough to fix our system here in America. They still leave room for these criminals to rob hardworking Americans by profiting from illness and injury. I am not opposed to a fair market system, or even elements of a free market system, but we're not talking about selling widgets to fulfill a need, we are talking about the health and lives of people... Real people that work hard, that have families, that should not be punished or robbed because they suffer from illness or were injured in an accident. Putting the lives and well-being of hardworking Americans second in line to a corporate profit margin is a morally bankrupt practice far worse than any abortion, rape, or act of violence. It says in no uncertain terms that a product of modern capitalism takes priority over God's most precious creation.

So this month if you see or hear about any of these types of protests or demonstrations, think about exactly what it is these people are advocating. They do make strong arguments, and they in fact have some very valid points. But we are talking about the lives of real people, like you and me and our families being less important than a corporate fat cat's next private jet flight, weekend at the beach house, or golf outing.

God Bless the Secular State

I came across a posting by an old friend today regarding the state of our nation and how God feels about it, or would feel about it if a supreme being truly cared that much about the affairs of the youngest empire on the planet.  An interesting argument was made, and it's an argument that I grew up with, and an argument that since I grew up with it, had never realized that it is a very contemporary argument and is completely baseless.  This lie, and it was in the posting I read, made a statement that this country had moved away from God some time ago.  And that because this nation that was based on Christian principles had moved away from God, we're in big trouble.  

The problem with this thought is that our nation was never founded on Christian principles, our nation was founded on the principles of agnostics, atheists, deists, unitarians, and Christians of the enlightenment period who romanticized the beliefs of ancient Greece and Rome(pagans).  Where or how we get Christian principles from that is beyond me.  One man who did a great deal in helping to shape the foundations of our nation, Thomas Jefferson, made sure that God and religion did not make it into our governmental structure.  Other founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison all have recorded statements of their opposition one way or another to the involvement of God in the state. 

Thomas Jefferson, it is worth noting was probably a Christian in the best sense of what a Christian should be.  He actually focused on the teachings and moral value of what Christ had to say.  Jefferson, famously now, wrote his own version of the New Testament in which he took out all of the superstitious, supernatural, and miraculous filler.  Commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible, it focuses on an aspect of Christianity that most Christians, I fear, miss out on.  As a Christian, would I follow the teachings of Christ, or just focus on the supernatural feats and figure that since I can't do those things, I need to worship this guy?  The point of the miraculous happenings in Jesus' ministry was not to awe people into believing in him, but rather to get people to listen to the things he came to teach.  - Charity, pacifism, living a simple life, loving your enemies, giving up your riches - Find me a well off, right wing, fundamentalist, conservative Christian who believes in a strong military, eliminating the 'welfare state',  supporting the state of Israel, and gun rights, and I'll show you someone who has lost the plot.

This isn't a post to beat up on the religious right, as much pleasure as it may give me from time to time.  My intention is to dispel the myth that the United States is somehow or ever was supposed to be a Christian nation.  Simple fact is that it is not, and for that I am glad.  If God cares at all about the mundane everyday politics in our era, I'm pretty sure he'd want government to function effectively without superstitious prejudices getting in the way of guaranteeing people's Liberty, or whatever we think government should do these days.  

If in fact religion or God were supposed to be a part of our state, clearly then, the framers of the Constitution would not have specifically banned religious tests for holding office.  They would not have made sure that the First Amendment guaranteed that in no way would government establish any law that restricts the religious practices or beliefs of an individual.  And most importantly, if the framers of the Constitution wanted God or religion to have anything to do with the business of governing men, they would not have very clearly and specifically guaranteed that our government would never act in a way to establish a specific religion or church.  

It is actually as good for religion in America as it is for the government that we generally try to keep them from too much involvement with one another.  In many European nations with established churches, the numbers of citizens active in religious activities are shockingly low.  America is an exceptional example of a thriving religious community. Funny then that a common complaint of the religious right is that this nation needs to 'come back to God'.  An interesting fact that the religious right doesn't want us to know is that now, more than any time in our history, we have the largest percentage of people who engage in religious activity.  Interesting then when we hear the argument that this nation that we are 'losing sight' of God, and that they need to 'reclaim' America for God.  I don't know, but it sounds like someone isn't being honest with us.

So with that, God bless the Secular State, if it weren't for such a thing, religion would undoubtedly be as dead in America as many Western European nations.  Besides that, could anyone picture President Obama in a funny Papal type hat (of course the President would be the head of the state established church).  Being a religious person myself, the last thing I want is some government, I don't care which one, but some government meddling with the everyday affairs of my religion.  

Media Myth

So, I'm in class today, and we're talking about the age of mass media in which we are currently in.  Political and social scientists argue that today's media is incredibly diverse and chock full of competition.  Their argument behind this belief, a reasonable one, is that at any given moment you can turn on the television or the computer and find news from a multitude of sources out there.  I have though been having a rather hard time with this.  I'm not writing today to tell anyone of the political biases of the mass media, that seems like an argument with no good answer; many people on the right argue that the media has a clear and definite slant to the left, and people on the left argue the same just in the other direction.  What I would argue though is the massive scale in which the modern news media is inefficient, inaccurate, and incompetent.  Furthermore, in no way do I believe that there is a large diversity of voices out there in regards to the mass media; rather a great many voices all spewing the same swill, representing the interests of a few massive corporations.  

There are in fact only ten companies that control almost all of what anyone can see out there.  When looking into the stakes and ownerships of these massive media conglomerates, only three are not owned in part by some of their competition; Sony, General Electric, and Walt Disney.  This fact doesn't tell the whole truth though, after digging a bit deeper to see where ownership of individual networks and news outlets are concerned, not one of the ten major media companies operate independently of any of their competition.  How can anyone argue that there is a diversity in news and opinion out there when there are ten companies, all working together, providing the public with almost all of their news and information?  

I'm not trying to suggest as some conspiracy theorists do that this puts us somehow on a path toward a New World Order or that all of the media is entirely corrupt.  I believe there are individual journalists and reporters that are reporting on news that they believe to be relevant.  The problem that I see is in the gatekeeping.  That is what stories get reported, which ones get left behind and why.  When the World Trade Organization holds a conference, it's no wonder that none of the major networks like ABC, CBS, or NBC spend much if any time on the situation in the streets outside of the conference.  Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC), and Viacom (CBS) would lose some of the benefits created for them by the ludicrous free trade agreements made by the WTO.  Surely if the American public were to see their fellow citizens being run down by storm troopers in riot gear for showing their opposition to such deals and organizations, they would be outraged and someone would have to do something about it.  So the simple solution is to keep it quiet.  If the most powerful corporations in industry, technology, and services are the same corporations that serve as our window to the world why would they show the public anything that does not serve their best interest.  

You don't have to be a socialist, progressive, or a libertarian to see this, sadly it seems that only those on the fringe... better yet, those who believe there is something better out there than the stale 'best worst' scenario that is spoon fed to the American public so they don't get too far out of line and disrupt the balance of power, are the ones who are quickest to pick up on this.

What can be done then?   This is where I have trouble.  Being one of those fringe elements, considering myself left of left and favoring ideas bordering socialism my response is to regulate the media industry, keep these massive corporations from becoming too big, and thus making them less harmful to the enlightenment of the American public.  I already know what all of my fellow fringe elements in the Libertarian party will say, and that is we can't trust the government, they are the enemy in the first place.  There are I'm sure a slew of opinions and disagreements in between.  So what do we do? Can we let the free market have it and just stop giving these companies our money?  They're the only ones out there.  My internet service fee each month goes to support one of these ten media giants, in fact if I want internet where I live, I have no option but to give one of them money.  Same thing goes for paid television and a phone line.  Anyone, anything?

Happy Earth Day

It's been 39 years since the first Earth day in 1970.  Environmental awareness is the first step in taking action to make our planet a better place.  Where do we stand in light of Earth Day being recognized annually for almost forty years now?  Well, in some aspects things are definitely better, for example the Cuyahoga river hasn't caught on fire due to pollution since 1969.  In other aspects we are not any better.  Global Warming is a real issue that really has yet to be addressed, unfortunately very rich and very powerful entities stand in the way.  Sad to say, but it's hard to get as rich off of renewable energies like wind, solar, and geothermal.  One more piece of misfortune is that it seems the people at the top would prefer a larger profit margin today regardless of the cost to future generations.  On this Earth Day, I will be writing letters to my representatives in Washington and Lansing and asking them to get with the program and do something about the ever-looming problem of pollution in our nation.  If we really are what they say we are, the greatest nation on the planet, we should not back down from this challenge of finding renewable, clean, and safe forms of producing energy.  The world is not a perfect place, but we should never stop trying. Happy Earth Day.

Tax week has now come and past, and I have been seeing things about this teabagging going on this past Wednesday.  I'm not usually plugged into the fifty dollar a month glowing blue box news sources (cable news), but in a fit of boredom just the other night I was curious what the cable networks were saying about this.  In passing NPR and the BBC made mention of these events, but for the times I listened there was not a great deal of time spent on this issue, except for an essay piece by Jack Lessenberry about how though taxes were annoying to him, he was proud to pay them because most of that money went to things he enjoyed and believed people should have.  Like roads and police and books in our public schools and national defense.  But he did not really make a big hubub about the teabaggers themselves, just about what they were out in the streets about.  

The cable news was where this showdown was really intended to take place, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC and CBS don't care what happens in the streets of America. (Trust me, after being part of over 400,000 people marching on Washington, and having FOX tell me we were only about 1,000 strong, and CNN flinch when they reported the truth, change it a minute later to 'thousands' because FOX's story was different)  What they were interested in is whether or not they could effectively produce - in the sense of producing television - produce a movement.  MSNBC's Keith Olberman was all over it, mocking it and calling it a sham, in the mean time FOX was fairly and with balance telling everyone that they needed to be there, and that every one of their shows on tax day would be dedicated to showing how outraged everyone was with their taxes.  I did some looking, maybe not enough, but it looked like CNN took the sideline on this one... 

So the stage was set, the news networks had drawn their lines in the sand, their lead commentators faced off... Would the people turn out, would the "Mainstream Media" cover it?  I thought it was particularly funny, in a couple clips from FOX I was watching, they kept questioning if the "mainstream media" would cover it, like they weren't ranked number one in cable news... doesn't that make YOU mainstream?  Anyway, the numbers are out, the guesses totaled.  Nationwide the highest estimate from city and county officials totals 240,000 (remember thats nationwide)  and the largest was 20,000.  These statistics are from the Christian Science Monitor, the only newspaper i could find that would offer me real numbers.  Though I did find it laughable in my search reading from several conservative newspapers from around the nation that this was the largest movement seen in the nation in decades... Nonetheless they had their little party, sponsored by the industry leader in cable news, and they all cheered and patted themselves on the back.  As one conservative newspaper put it, the protests were "dominated by white conservatives and libertarians". 

Now for a little perspective... In March 2006, led by community organizers, 1.5 million protesters hit the streets around the nation to protest the conservative initiative to clamp down on immigration and build a ridiculous Stalin-esque wall between our nation and theirs.  In February 2003, the highest estimates of anti-war protesters pleading with George W Bush to not invade Iraq was 10 million.  In January 2007 between 100,000 and 400,000 people showed up in Washington DC to protest the announcement of the surge, a plan to send more troops into a war that was, and is failing.  To FOX's point these, and many other events were largely absent in the mass media, there was a Britney Spears bad hair day to cover instead.  

What does this all say?  First of all, FOX should no longer be allowed to use the name "NEWS" in their title, something more fitting like ' FOX current events and opinions' or 'FOX what we think news ought to be'.  I'm not saying there's much better about the other networks out there, any of you that listen to my ravings know that I'm not much a fan of anything corporate... Clearly though, you can't call yourself a news organization and then organize a nationwide series of protests to a government's policy.  That is where you cease to be a news agency and become part of a movement.  A news agency would be present at the rally, but would not have their top anchormen leading the charge...  

Second, it looks to me as though this teabag nonsense has gotten more press coverage in five days that the entire anti-war movement has gotten in the last six years.  There are more important things out there than your money in your billfold people.  I don't think that the majority of the public seems to care that 5000 or so Americans have been killed as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in this needless and illegal war we are engaged in.... By the way for all you tax activists out there, upset because we're spending billions of dollars trying to save the economy at home, just a quick fun fact for you, the US military budget including all costs Iraq and Afghanistan is more than any stimulus type package we've seen so far... Thats okay with you, lets spend 700+ Billion dollars on killing and destroying a foreign land, but when it comes to rebuilding our own after the flawed system of the last thirty years is collapsing, thats when we're wasting money... I get it.

Last, I would like to welcome the white middle class, 'living cozy in my four bedroom, two story, two stall garage house - But I'm getting taxed too much' people into the fold of faithful social dissidents, I hope that someday we'll find an issue to hit the streets together in agreement on.  Until then, go back home, sit back down in front of your 46" LCD HDTV, keep ignoring the fact that your kid is popping prescription pills, and shut the fuck up.  Taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society.  It's a hassle yes, but one of those necessary evils.  I would much rather live in a nation with roads, police forces, public schools, fire departments, a national defense, and all the other wonderful things that our taxes buy us.  This is not to say that there is some wasteful spending that comes out of our government.  There is.  I recommend that you take issue with the things that you find wasteful, rather than the means to which both the useful and the wasteful are funded.  Thats like saying 'hey I don't like that my kid stays out too late every once in a while, I'm going to kill him'  rather the response should be to correct the disagreeable behavior.

Today's thoughts

It's been a bit since I've said much here... Not that I haven't had much to say, just haven't done it.  I was listening to one of my favorite radio shows last night in which they were talking about the political dirt being flung from the right, and how militant it has gotten lately.  The question was asked about whether or not it was too much, especially considering some of the things that came from the left over the last eight years.  

As many of you may know, I was not a fan of the Bush administration, I was not a fan of the systematic pulling back of constitutional rights, and the institutional promotion of bigotry and hatred that came down from on high, and I was, and still am not a fan of the two senseless illegal wars we are fighting over seas.  So far, the Obama administration has promoted diplomacy and dialogue between nations, as opposed to the Bush administration's provocation, and heavy handedness on similar issues.  Our current president has given back hope to the promise of science helping to make our world a better one to live in, been actively pursuing ways to better the economic situation, and been making amends to peoples and nations the Bush administration burned bridges with.  Obama has also made an effort to bring an end to the war in Iraq, setting a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops.

These efforts for peace and prosperity have been met by the right with dangerous rhetoric encouraging citizens to arm themselves, prepare for revolution, protest taxes, and one particular talking head even asked for President Obama to light him on fire, rather than do the things he was doing.  This nonsensical raving of lunatics, one would hope, would be limited to a fringe group of far right fanatics that no one in their right mind would pay any attention to.  Unfortunately, most of these inflammatory statements are coming from respected members of the mainstream Republican community, and here's where the problem lies...

During the Bush years, there were many rotten things said about Bush and his cronies, much of it deserved, some of it not.  The bulk, however, of the more militant and ridiculous things coming from the left came from fringe elements, not the mainstream.  Most Democrats and liberals brushed the majority of the nonsense aside, and tried to stay on point with factual and logical issues that deserved to be challenged. (say torture, spying on Americans, refusing rights to prisoners, wasteful government spending, tax cuts for the rich making the burden of the middle class worse, so on...)  

In any case, it comes down to this: During the last eight years, our country has gotten a little off course.  The economy is in shambles, and it seems the only people not struggling are the richest of the rich who George W Bush saw fit to give tax cuts and in the mean time the other 90 percent of us are struggling.  Our unemployment rate is the highest it's been since 1983 (Ronald Reagan, the guy who started this mess was president then by the way) We are involved in two pointless and bloody wars that are showing no signs of a real 'victory' anywhere in sight.  Our public school systems are crumbling.  Something has to be done about it.  President Obama is.  This is not to say that I agree with everything that is being done, but at least it's better than cutting taxes for the rich, investing billions in killing machines, tearing down civil liberties, and putting more emphasis on faith than science.  Hopefully four years from now we'll be better off than we are today, and hopefully we can come together to make this nation and this world a better place to live than what we've been given.