Eat Less Meat, Save the Earth

Whilst the pawns of ministers race to and fro from small country working group to big country working group in Copenhagen discussing ways to reduce carbon emissions, which are being caused by excessive use of fossil fuels, once a day the lunch bell rings and these same pawns, a smattering of bishops and an assortment of rooks retreat to the cafeteria.

Tucking into soups and salads and breads with butter many do. Topped with jams are hams. Burgers of beef, salads of chicken and kebabs of lamb adorn plates of paper amidst conversations of conservation and ways to avoid the flu. What the world's climatological elite seem to forget, however, is that world eating habits are as destructive if not more so than world manufacturing.

Meat for Everyone

In 1958, per capita consumption of meat (beef, chicken, turkey and lamb) in the United States was 196 pounds, today it is 273. In Europe it was 123 and today it is 196. Ireland went from 121 to 213; New Zealand from 248 to 312 and China rose from 8 pounds of meat to 119: 1.3 billion Chinese are eating 119 pounds of meat each year.

Most of this meat is eaten in the form of the sadly-ubiquitous and highly-processed hamburger and other such similar "culinary advancements." The hamburger and fast-food industry is like none other with its universal disregard for worker's safety, abuse of the cows, relaxed attitude toward consumer's safety, destruction of the environment, etc.

Now, let us consider this little fact: 33 calories of fossil fuel (as they say "from semen to cellophane") are burned to produce one food calorie of beef. For every 1 calorie of fossil fuel burned, grains and vegetables give us 1.5 to 2 food calories. For every single bite of a piece of meat, we are wasting the earth's limited resources. The larger the steak, chicken or turkey, the warmer we cause the earth to get. It is a simple as that--well, not really, but, for argument's sake and so as not to bore with Gore-like facts and figures, this is the case.

Mass Produced Meat (including "free range and organic") is Destroying the Earth

All across America and the world, ever more and more arable land is being set aside to grow grain and soybeans for the raising of livestock. All throughout Africa, the ruling elite, realizing the wealth that can be attained via the exporting of beef to Europe, China and the US, enforces the planting of crops for the raising of feed for meat production.

We all have heard about the dangers of deforestation. The Brazil rain forest loses .3% each year. The local people hack away hundreds of acres a day, then burn the chopped wood and then plant crops for the production of grain and soybeans. Brazil's loss, however, is nothing in comparison to places like Argentina and Columbia.

In America, Africa and other parts of the world, it is not called deforestation but rather "desertification." In the world today, there are around 1.5 billion cows (20 billion chickens, a billion pigs, a half a billion turkeys and 800 million goats). When millions of cows graze and graze over and over on the same tens of thousands of square acres, the land is destroyed: rivers are destroyed as a result of the destruction of vegetative cover, compaction occurs from the extreme scuffling and infiltration declines resulting in runoff and soil erosion (boring, yes).

(By the way, a single pig farm in Texas produces 2000 tons of urine each day, all which goes into water tables; and daily in the US, 24,000,000 chickens are slaughtered.)

In addition, to ever increase the amount of grain obtained from one acre of land (monocropping), excessive applications of nitrgen-laced fertilizer are used. Nitrogen is 100 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide and will tip the scale toward destructive global warming much sooner than C02 will. Nitrogen leads to the formation of vast wastelands of toxic algae which choke life out of the oceans leading to a depletion of oxygen and an increase of CO2; nitrogen also depletes the ozone layer, to say the very least.

As the world meets in Copenhagen bent on protecting its "development"--a misnomer if there ever was one-- and ever devoted to the post-WWII Pax Americana principles of hyper-consumption, the real issues are not being discussed. Each country will do its best to ensure that its "economic interests" are not being tread upon; however, the ultimate destruction of the earth is not one they consider potentially debilitating--if we in America were to look at the tax payer dollars going to recover areas devastated by hurricanes, forest fires, floods, etc., we would all agree that it would be cheaper to prevent global warming then to deal with its growing effects.

So, as the world misses yet another chance to do something good for all of us, each one of us can start today by merely cutting our meat consumption in half; and, in a year, cut that in half and 6 months after that, cut that in half. With such progressive and positive eating habits, we will have done more to prevent the dangers of global warming then the so-called elected officials whose job it is to protect our interests at day's end.

Eat more veggies, less meat. However, with that said, I will enjoy my monthly stewed rabbit with rosemary and peeled, cherry tomatoes and carrots. Nothing wrong with enjoying some meat, just do it in great moderation.

The Danger of China and our TVA Moment

Not too long ago, rice paddies reigned where today amazing well-laid out factories with armies of workers eat, sleep and mass-produce stuff in almost every shape, size, color, taste and crumbling wall. Massive and modern cities have arisen from the paddies in just 25 years. Where an ox pulled a cart in 1989, today a tram is being hauled over sleek, new tracks.

At the same time, our country has shed "useless", low-technology job after job to China and most recently to India and Brazil. In 1987 or so, I used to argue at Rutgers and with my father about how the US economy was shedding those jobs because "who needs these harmful and mind-knumbing industries anyway?" My father told me that these were jobs Americans were losing and I said, "yes, but, they will be replaced with new technologies."

He was right and I was wrong

Oh, How wrong I was...

Sadly, when my father and I were battling over this, it was at the time when the Reagan mantra of "governmnet IS the problem" was taking hold. This was the time when suddenly confronted with a collapsed Soviet Union, our hubris overcame us and instead of using our so-called "peace dividend" to reinvest in America's then-crumbling infrastructure, we continued along the same path that had been blazed by Reagan: we cut taxes, cut taxes, demonized government and deregulated banking and Wall Street.

The core of my naivety, if it had been supported by spine-less politcians, would have resulted in a powerful, sound and booming American economy. We would have been glad to have had China take up those "meaningless" jobs for us; to produce our doilies, thingamajigs and whatjamacallits. Harmful manufacturing would have been their domain and life-advancing technologies would have been ours.

Sadly though, with the deregulation came "quick return addiction (QRA)." In 1925, when taxes were cut for the owners, they plowed much of this money back into the sprawling American infrastructure/manufacturing base. WWII made the US economic power we all knew and loved entering Vietnam and the heralded profits were invested all over the US and world for the sole benefit of the United States tax base.

Reagan was fed on this belief, of American economic greatness, and his belief was for the most part a real one. Yet, the Republican tendency then as it is now, was to say "screw the poor and working poor." If you can't make enough money to support yourself in this "booming America" then you must be lazy or weak and so you must suffer the consequences. If you aren't supporting yourself then you are simply not working.

Well, things have really changed since those axioms were applicable to our nation: China changed, India changed, Asia changed.

Boom Times

When Clinton came to town and boom times came shorly afterwards, the anti-government movement was alive and well. Tax cuts were a reality and record ones were enacted by W (whilst waging a two front war, nonetheless). Now, here is the difference between 1925 and 1995: then the super wealthy had places in America to invest in to make crazy returns, today there is nowhere to invest to make crazy returns but in crazy, unregulated and scantily-taxed Wall Street ponzi schemes.

The super rich, with freshly-minted tax cuts in hand, realized that the hyper-saturated US market demanded ever larger and larger initial investments (entry costs) in order to get even fair returns over many years. The conclusion drawn from the Reagan "revolution" is that it was an anti-America one. It has denied America a future and made the military industrial complex our only advancing and old-fashioned American industry which employees millions--directly or indirectly. The seeds for a banana republic were planted under Reagan and have been harvested under W. If we are not invading and waging war or selling war, than we have almost nothing left to offer.

The Reagan, anti-regulation, me-first revolution rewards myopic corporate decision-making all so the quarterly profits--not annual, not 5-year--can be maximized. How do you maximize a quarterly profit? Don't invest in your workers or your infrastructure or make really low-quality products. The quick-return-addiction has decimated our economy.

This QRA has led so-called patriot, American businessmen to relocate all of their businesses to China or India. This means that the jobs are there also. This means that the second largest employer after the military industrial complex is Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart: the purveyor of low-quality crap, bad meat and processed foods; literally, everything that is wrong with America today can be summed up in one word: Wal-Mart.

If we combine all retailers, then most Americans are working in some capacity for large, box-stores. And, the Chinese are pumping out the endless streams of crap to fill those stores. We have become drones to their whims.

The Danger of China

The worst thing for the Chinese government is to have unemployed Chinese people. The Chinese love to work and when not working, they are not eating. And a hungry mass of 100,000,000 unemployed is enough to send the Chinese government packing and then hanging from trees. So, what they do? They lower the value of their currency and order the factory bosses to start churning out even cheaper shit than before!

The struggling American worker who cannot buy Christmas gifts suddenly realizes that things this year are cheaper than a mere 3 months ago; and, by as much as 20%! Yes, Christmas will be had this year! Who can blame this family? Not me! They have kids and the kids expect Christmas.

Because the Chinese are producing these luxuries at below-cost prices and so cheaply, no American business, big or small, can possibly ever compete! Meaning that the no new job will be created because the Chinese have taken our principles of capitalism and "manufacture and conquer" and are now today enacting them better than we are.

President Obama has come to town promising to make our government more progressive, more pro-active in solving many of these problems. He wants to and has tried to launch an economic revolution based on the investment in green technologies. These technologies would take us off of our dependency for foreign gas and oil. It would permit us to create millions upon millions of new jobs all throughout our nation.

These jobs would offer careers to people, to families. These would be the kinds of jobs that father and mother would pass to son and daughter--precisely the kinds of jobs that over the past 20 years have been replaced by retail jobs, service-industry jobs. Stuck in this hyper-consumption model of economic development, if we want a modicum of economic well-being, then all Americans are forced to consume, consume and consume 24/7.

And even now, formerly a day when stores were closed for family, rest and relaxation, Thanksgiving has become yet another day to feed the family processed foods so as to make it to the front of the line at the Best Buy or Wal-Mart before other T-Day revelers can awaken from their turkey-induced naps. The cult of consumption not only has destroyed our formerly inherent American ingenuity, it now threatens one of our last and most truly national of all holidays.

Perhaps more tax-cuts will do the trick--NOT

Republicans will tell us that the problem with our nation is that goverment spending and taxes are killing us. Their medicine for making our nation less retail-oriented and more, in this case, focused on starting a green revolution, is to cut taxes for the super rich. The added money in their pockets will permit them to invest in the new technologies.

What's wrong with this formula? Look at the 4000 and rising dead fighting men and women in Iraq. Chosen by Cheney and his coterie of pug-uglies to supply our troops with the means by which they would carry out the illegal invasion of that sovereign nation, these companies chose to sell the most expensive, highest-margin items which the troops--in interview after interview confirmed--didn't need. The low-margin stuff like body-armor was deemed by the boards of directors and Cheney as "unnecessary."

And, this attitude toward our nation's troops, all hid in bunting and draped behind words of "Praise Jesus," was at a time of the greatest tax-cuts in our history--run through by the GOPCON Congress under the precedure we now know as "reconcilation:" Dems never had a chance to stop the theft from our nation's future!

Big Business, when granted more untaxed returns than ever before did what? Nothing. It did not invest in new technologies, it did not create new jobs for Americans but instead gave out larger bonuses, invested in super-high-return derivatives and watched as our nation plummeted. Today, the only player who can be counted on for investing in our nation's future, in an infrastructural grid which will enable us to become not just competitive again but the world's economic leader is the Federal Government.

Yet, while they accuse Obama of bankrupting our nation, the dumbing-down of our nation, the retail-oriented approach to economic growth, the budget-busting tax-cuts which are actually more "hidden" spending--called opportunity cost--than anything Obama has done to date, all happened on the watch of Republicans and Conservatives.

It is time to stop thinking all Americans should be drones in a retail-store saga playing the roles of consumers by day only to step into a phonebooth and come out again as workers by night in that same Wal-Mart. The desertification of our national industrial work base must stop. President Obama and the Democratic Congress must fight the good fight and direct our dwindling national wealth toward the following:

Wind-technologies, grid development which will make it affordable for getting wind and sun energy into cities and communities that need it, inexpensive and safe batteries for electric cars, solar panels for homes throughout the nation (the panels will be made where...in the USA!), no-tillage technologies for farming, high-speed rail systems, to name a few areas. If federally backed today, within 5 years there will be over 10 million jobs directly created and another 15 or so indirectly created. America will be booming for another 100 years or so and we will be doing good for the environment.

However, in order to do these things, we must fight the ingrained powers of yesterday: big oil, big coal (undoubtedly the NRA will be opposed to this approach), Republican ideas of less government and no taxes and sheer stupidity as our nation has come to believe that a $30 big-screen TV is better for us than capturing the suns rays and lighting your home so you can watch that TV.

A Commentary on Birthdays

Today is my birthday. 43 years ago, shortly after Thanksgiving dinner, instead of getting up to wash the dishes after the meal as was common for women to do at the time, my mother took the "easy way out": she went to the hospital and a few hours later, at 9:32 PM, gave birth to me.

It seems her avoidance to washing dishes that day, and perhaps her "guilt" at having left the other women with the task (grandmother and 2 aunts), instilled in me a passion for washing dishes. I love washing them and I feel so good, complete after I have knocked off a pile of dishes; day over, dishes done, now I can put the feet up and watch 60 Minutes or the Waltons (shows which have created a "lifereel" of sorts for my life).

"The Sound of Music" has also shaped my life and honestly, I never feel better as when I am near the Alps--except when I am sitting at Sweet Lew's in Freehold enjoying a breakfast with family, friends will be at a table nearby or just alone with a newspaper and hopefully another Yankee's victory or another Rutger's loss!

Lessons Incomplete

Amazingly, everything I was so sure of when I was 20 has now been disproven by me, my studies and time. Even some of my beliefs have embarassed me in their naivety. I remember sitting with friends on a porch on Main Street in Freehold arguing how it would be best to not have sex until you are married. We all agreed. A year or two later, we all forget about that agreement.

I couldn't cook anything when I was 27 and now I can cook or bake anything I see, taste or like. I have come to really not like eating in restuarants and have learned that any fanatical obsession with eating, exercise, not drinking, smoking or just any attempt to believe that I am better than then others always results in a "smack down" by life. So, although I don't eat sweets, today I will bake a pumpkin cheesecake pie and eat a piece! (Only one though.)

I am flawed and screw up everyday and every year and many a time during a day or a week or a month, I will ask myself, "idiot, why did you do that?" The idiot never knows but somewhere inside me the answer echoes: because you are the same, troubled, stumbling, ready-to-fight, bad tempered kid, one of 5, who was born 43 years ago, and you feel you must prove to somone something. What that "something" is and to which "someone"? Don't know. Just don't know (Sadly, most of those I should've proved something to are now gone. Yet, I know one thing, they were all happy with me when alive.)

Despite those years and a lot of knowledge I have gained, book and practical, I am still the same person in almost all respects. I still hear echoes of my thoughts, whether it be playing war with my friends in the cemetary on snow days when I imagined I was on some front in Belgium during The Battle of the Bulge; or, be it my excessive "homerun hitting" in the backyard against my brother who really hated baseball, I am still striving toward that great moment when I too will be able to extract minutes and hours of greatness from time's ordinary passage.

Fortunately, what I just realized last week was that there isn't one day, one moment, one place to which we should strive. So many times, I have left the gym after a good workout, gone to another country or spent some amazing moment at some party meeting famous people, and thought, "one day, when I am older, I will be sitting around on a porch with my guitar in my hands telling all of these tales to my kids, grand-kids and whomever else will listen."

It then dawned on me. Those people too will be living their lives and thinking the same things that I think. I suddenly realized that the life I am building is not so I can tell about it but so that I can be ready should someone ask. And, should someone somewhere need a bit of guidance as they are struggling to figure out this short stop on earth, in ways that I have been guided, I too must might find the right resources, words, examples to assist them as they go forward.

It took 43 years, but, after a nice weekend in my third hometown of Munich, sitting around drinking beers with the locals and talking for hours on end about everything--in the beer halls you can sit where there are free seats so often you sit with strangers--I came to the conclusion that I no longer need to strive for that one moment of greatness--that Reggie Jackson moment in the '77 World Series.

After 43 years of life, believe it or not, I have calmed considerably. I am ready for the next 63 years and I feel that my approach to this part of life is sounder. But, then again, in 20 years from now, these words too will seem naive and probably embarass me a bit.

And despite having so many times over the last 43 years felt like I was lost for good and would never find my beloved "Bedford Falls", someone, something, some song or some sky would snap me back on course and the snow would start falling again, some random "Bert" would recognize me and Zuzu's petals would be right where I left them.

I have no complaints, just make sure my beer is cold and that it has a nice, frothy head.

Happy Birthday to everyone on this day and the other 364.

The Daisy Spot and Sean Hannity

A young girl is playfully counting as she pulls the petals off of a daisy. She is counting incorrectly. Suddenly, a man's voice starts a count-down of his own: 10-9-8-7 and so on until zero. At the end of count-down, we see a horrible mushroom cloud and hear: "Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high."

Run by the committee for the re-election of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and against the arch-conservative and father of today's conservative movement, Barry Goldwater (Ronald Reagan was not the father of this neo-fascist movement,like many want to believe, but rather merely its offspring).

Produced by the advertising pioneer Tony Schwartz, the ad immediately created an uproar amongst Republicans. They feared the images would too accurately show Goldwater for what he was: a man of extreme views and liable to act without thought as opposed to being a moderate, as they were trying to sell him to the American public.

Image Manipulation

The soundtrack for this ad, the images, the allusion that if Goldwater were elected we could expect nuclear war, were next to genius. They were primitive and straight-forward assaults upon the emotions of the viewers: tactics very common at the time. A billboard in Pittsburg, PA in 1959 showed the hand of a black man in a menacing, reaching pose, fingers curled as if ready to pounce and a white woman with a purse is reacting in horror supposedly seeing this hand. Beneath this imagery are the following words: "Vote Republican on November 4th."

Wow!

Although it seems we have been evolving away from such outright manipulation, such overt racist abuses in political ads, we should not forget Republican abuses like the Willy Horton ads run by George Bush I. I want to hope that that was the exception, really, and that even the win-at-any-price, earth-scorching Republicans know not to abuse black-white tensions so openly--not to say that it still doesn't happen.

This new era of high-tech manipulations, putting people in photos when they weren't there, putting in soundtracks that come from completely different situations, splicing in video in :03 seconds chunks and bits interlaced with venomous so-called "news-reporting/commentary" harkens back to clumsy and historically obvious cuts and purges of photos during Soviet times.

An entire exhibition in Moscow a few years back showed how Russian/Soviet history had lost figures from prominent photos only to see them reappear in the same photos some years later when the "lost person's" standing was renewed: the Soviets proved that the manipulation of journalistic history for control sake, for victory was a valuable tool; a tool in a society that is run by corrupt and evil-doing dictators. As a result, today few Russians put any stock in photos or video for they all know that it can be manipulated and doctored to sell any "present or historical truth.:" reality is in the eye of the editor.

The Republican Party's Propoganda Station: Fox TV

No one can ever accuse Fox-"News" of being journalistic. Truth and facts are not issues they seek to report but rather simplified and emotional versions of the former and latter. A less diplomatic person than myself would call what they report as "news", outright and blatant lies.

Many Americans tune into this channel for their daily dose of news. Sadly, the vast majority who thrive on the Kool-Aid ladled out by Fox-"News" don't seek to back up their information with other more reliable and factual sources: the Associated Press being the least opinionated of them all. The average Fox-"News" watcher doesn't read books on history or political histories. He doesn't have the time, desire or inclination to study these things and that is his free-choice. More power to him.

My beef is not so much with the arguably lazy Fox-"News" viewer as it is with the creators of the reality they pass off regularly as facts. These people are abusing a privilege they have earned from the blood, sweat and tears of generations of Americans who came before them. The boys who assualted the beaches at Normandy would be the last ones to lie or embellish the reality of their accomplishments of that "longest day." As was so sappily brought to my attention recently, the ideas for which our flag stands are ones of honor, truth, goodness, fairness and America.

Sean Hannity's abuse of journalistic principles, his open and obvious manipulation of video footage to create news where news was void, is heinous, irresponsible and should result in castigation. The fact that the ever-vigilante and real-left John Stewart caught this "mistake" should not draw our attention away from Fox's abuses of modern technology.

Fox regularly manipulates and bends the truth via video and audio technology in order to destroy any fair chance democrats--Obama--can have at properly and sanely governing our nation through hardship. Fox was the biggest cheerleader on the race to the illegal invasion of Iraq. They spliced and split and lied to provide "factual news coverage" to the viewers who use this news medium as their sole and gospel one. So many still believe that bombs of mass destruction were found and that Al Qaeda was funded by Saddam Hussein, all thanks to Fox and their support of Bush's lies.

Fox-"News" is not a news organization. It is mouth-piece of the GOPCON Party. It is the propaganda bureau of the GOPCON Party. Fox-"News" is no better than ITAR-TASS--the official "news" organ of the communist party in days gone and now the United Russia Party.

Nevertheless

Sean Hannity and his abuses will go unpunished. Fox-TV will actually gain viewers thanks to this scandal. GOPCON'ers will actually express delight about the fact that they are being duped, entertained by the likes of Hannity. In the vein of Limbaugh, these lazy and dangerous followers of propaganda geniuses on par with Goebbels, will become more boisterous and more anti-America than ever before.

And, as the problems fester and the calls for more tax breaks and less governance increase thanks to lies and abuses of journalistic rights, rights which have been guaranteed thanks to the spilled blood of soldiers past and present (and future), Fox and Hannity will keep laughing their way tot the bank as their viewership increases and the advertising dollars pile up.

The Daisy ad was genius as it mastered the subtlety of allusion. The Daisy Spot was a paid-for political advertisement. Fox-TV pawns off this mockery as factual news coverage or somewhat biased commentary; commentary, however, they claim based on facts. Like the Swift Boat scandal, which was proven to be all lies after the election was "won" by W, the Republicans continue to demonstrate that they will stop at nothing to denigrate Democrats and our president.
And in attempts to hide these despicable tactics, they drape themselves in flags and the memories of battles fought by soldiers in whose ranks they never stood. They cry patriotism when they fail to realize that their tactics for maintaining power are anti-America, anti-small town values, anti-freedom. They too become the walking, living lies that they listen 24/7 on the channels led by the likes of a drug-addicted fat-ass, Limbaugh, and Mr. Hannity.

Journalism is dead, long live journalism!


http://www.pbs.org/30secondcandidate/timeline/years/1964b.html

Communist Baseball!

Given that it seems like good sense and America-first thinking will prevail and healthcare reform will be passed sometime soon, I figured it was time to address something that has been bothering me for some time. How is it that the great American past-time, the greatest sport to have ever been conceived by man, could fall prey to communist (really, socialist) precepts?

If we were to toe the line and quote the words of some of the past and present leaders of America and our economy (Reagan and Greenspan), we should all be living and dying with the belief that "government is the problem;" and, that "the markets will correct everything, even fraud." In other words, keep your hands away from the market and in a Maradona-esque way, the hand of "God" will always balance the scale and ensure fairness for all.

Profit-sharing

In 1923, the New York Yankees opened their own stadium at 161st in the Bronx and that same year they won the World Series. Back then, the Yankees were nowhere near being the wealthiest club in baseball. The teams of inner-America, of St. Louis and Cincinnati, Pittsburg and Chicago and Detroit were the original powerhouses of Major League Baseball. The New York Highlanders (from 1913 on the Yankees) were not founded until 1903. And success was not immediate with the first World Series victory only coming in 1923, 3 years after acquiring Babe Ruth.

Through a mixture of luck and great baseball, the Yankees would go on to win another 20 WS titles before hitting the drought of the 60's and 70's. In 1972, George M. Steinbrenner would purchase the team and an era that still lives today was born. Steinbrenner was a successful businessman who despite his promises that he would not interfere with the team, did interfere and has driven the team crazy and to even greater baseball feats: 7 World Championships have been come thanks to him and his teams.

And, then, Steinbrenner and the Yankees were penalized for their shrewd business decisions and for their greatness. Whereas other owners were cutting investment from their teams, keeping them as perpetuals losers never able to win pennants, Steinbrenner and his team were ever thinking of new ways to make the Yankees better. Mr. Steinbrenner wanted to please the fans and he new that nothing less than a World Series trophy would do.

We Didn't Buy Greatness

One fine day, in 1997, a bunch of whining really wealthy and cheap whitemen (and one woman) gathered to say it was unfair that the Yankees and other so-called "big market teams" were making so much money while they were losing so much money. In other words, these team owners were admitting that a) they were losers; and b) that they fans were not loyal and at best were fair-weather ones: "if my team is winning I will come out and watch but if not, then I won't...wah."

If I make bad business decisions, am I not to suffer for them? If my company is being mismanaged and poorly run and I lose revenue as a result, why should expect my well-to-do competitors, many who have wisely and freely invested in making their businesses better, give me hand-outs to make me more competitive? And then, when I win, it is because I am playing true baseball and when the Yankees win, it is because they "bought another World Series." To quote the 101st Airborne's acting commander Brigadier General McAuliffe when asked to surrender to the Germans at Bastogne: "Nuts!"

We Didn't Buy Nuttin!

The New York Yankees are the greatest team in any sport because their are the best at what they do. They play baseball. Yankee owners maximize the resources they have the best and this guarantees them a run almost every single year! Yet, despite the massive amounts of investment that is put into this team, we have not won the World Series 59 times. And, there have been droughts as long as 18 years! From 1978 until 1996, the Yankees were spending more than everyone else yet also losing more than most others.

Putting a winning baseball team on the field is not easy--ask the other 29 teams. Ask a Yankee fan. Yet, we, the fans, pay what we do and obsess the way we do, like many other fans, yet the owner of our team respects us and therefore invests in greatness for us. As a result, the whining, cheap capitalists, the first ones to beg for a tax-cut from the government and to change the toilet paper from two-ply to sandpaper in the men's bathroom, all to save a dime, sold their souls. These criers of capitalist conjecture with their "I love Barry (Goldwater)" tatoos on places seldom seen by non-loved-ones, went commie!

Marxist-Leninist Baseball

No one really knows what it says in these Marxist tomes lying on the bottom of the dustbin of history (today being the 20th anniversary of that system's almost total death), but one thing is for sure: if you take from the rich to give to the poor then you are exacting the same kind of revolutionary tactics which ruined the country struggling for life just beyond the window at my back: Russia, in other words. Penalizing people for being great, for working hard, for investing their money so as to make their lawns look nicer and their yards bigger, for example, is communist; it is socialist; it is not American.

Baseball, one of the finest things we have given parts of the world, so bizarrely became communist. What is even odder than that is that so, so many of the people who think Reagan a god and Greenspan a genius, never even blinked when their losing teams became the recipients of the distributed wealth of their greater, better and more successful breathren.

Having said this, I will say it again, the Yankees are the greatest franchise in any sport because they are the best at what they do: playing baseball and running their business. All the other recipients of our largesse can either pack their bags and head to China, the last beacon of communist rule; or, they can simply admit that the Yankees are great because they are great.

Say we bought it and you admit you are a commie.

Fox: The Dumber the Better

There once was an American creed which, to paraphrase, stated the following: to those who rise early, who are honest and who respect their neigbors, the fruits of their labor will bring them rewards.

And then, the era of corporate welfare began in earnest; the era of hysterical governing in which a tactic often used by "communists" in Russia was employed to such a degree that still 15 years later we are stuck in this quagmire of "ungovernability."

The deke used with such amazing success by the hysterical-right (HR, hereinafter) is a simple one: lie about one's enemy with passion, believe your lie, and then force him to disprove the lie, nevertheless however, the stain will be on the dress (thank you Monica for saving it). This has been an amazing tactic used for nearly a century by Russian communists and now today's so-called democratically-elected governing party. In Russia, and in other low-trust societies, you lie and he who has the money to spin that lie and make it "reality" is the ultimate victor for the other guy expends all his energy disproving the lie.

Not My Concern

Russia, however, is not my concern. Despite living here for many years, I have learned one thing: keep your mouth shut in this society. You can have a negative opinion but just don't try to apply that to action or else very quickly you will be identified, isolated and expelled or arrested.

My concern is what I see happening in our America. Yes, we have always had an emotional and slightly hysterical bent to our politics. George Washington hated the media and the opposition so much when he left office he secretly feared that America couldn't last if new rules for governing weren't instituted. Not much was done, though, and today we still see similar tactics being applied by the media and the opposition.

The danger, however, lies not in these tactics but in the collaboration of these tactics. When the media becomes the opposition then we set out into swamps only traveled by the likes of Nazi's and Communists. For 15 years, all media in Nazi Germany were slipping into all aspects of their reporting, from weather forecasts to sales of lady's pantyhose, that Jews were "vermin." Guess what? During the immediate de-Nazification era after the war, Germans from 15 to 30 years of age were absolutely convinced that Jews were vermin. Fed lies by the mass media for over a decade, the lies became the truth.

Under Communism, for 70 years, lies (propaganda) were spilled across every aspect of society: from newspapers, to radio, to TV, to subway walls to park benches, the glory of communism was extolled. True, many knew that these "glories" were not so great. Yet, to this day, there are entire generations who are convinced that it was the American army that committed atrocities during WWII against Germans and Jews; that the firebombing of Dresden was genocide; that presidents are chosen by elite committees behind closed doors and so on. Now, the current system is again spoon-feeding the nation lies, opinions and creating for modern-day Russia, it's reality.

Hysteria for Power's Sake

The HR, the GOPCON Party and Fox-"News" are taking plays from the playbooks of some very dangerous and destructive parties. No good can be gained when a major network news program, with the resources of not just a TV station, but countless internet sites, newspapers and magazines, so vociferously creates a false reality for to the nation about politicians it does not feel fall in line with its political views.

Fox's behaviour is traitorous. The support of the HR for Fox's tactics is based on greed and immediate political gain. The GOPCON wants power so they can go back to ruining our nation through their inherent mismanagement; go back to bankrupting our nation through their ridiculus corporate welfare (tax cuts); so they can return to making America dumber by NOT investing in education, by making it less likely that working Americans can get student loans, by perpetuating our obsession with fossil fuels which leave us stuck in the go-nowhere economic muck we are currently in.

The dangers of letting Fox mangle the truth by inseminating it with lies is that since the birth of Fox, a generation of youth have come to age. These youth now believe these lies to be the truth. Class assaults that under Reagan would have been considered impeachable offenses, thanks to the hysteria and lies stoked by Fox, are today reasons why Republicans get elected in many states. And, the danger lies in the simplistic world of dichtomies: good versus evil, us v. them, black v. white, Yankees v. Phillies. The simpler the argument, the easier it is for people to understand.

Fox is for Dumb People

If we were to look at the places where Fox is considered the Gospel, we would notice that these parts of America are the least educated. The more outrageous and simplistic the lie, the easier it is to understand, the less worry a politician has about his hysteria and lies being questioned by an informed electorate.

Last year in Russia when the chess-genius Gary Kasparov tried to run for president, his followers were beaten and jailed. Why? Because he is smart and his platform was simple: are we better off today than we were 8 years ago? And then, the smart, well-spoken and well-respected, if not adored by many Russians chess champ merely laid out the problems that have gotten worse under Putin. He was chased out of the country. The goverment/party-controlled mass media made him out to be a drug-using, child-molesting lunatic--all lies, but, the truth was created by a the ruling party's media.

Putin feared Kasparov's intelligent and rational critique would result in smart voters, the majority being concentrated in St. Petersburg and Moscow, not turning out to vote on election day. So, he silenced rational, unemotional opposition and he kept the voters in the dark; instead they spent months pondering whether it could be true that their chess hero was really a heroin-addicted pedofile. And, Medvedev won by a landslide. He created emotional responses where none should have been and manipulated them against his potential opponent.

Some Questions

Finally, I would like to ask some questions of my sane and educated breathren on the other side of the political pendulum: can you really think any good will come out of joining the GOP with Fox-News? Can you really think any good will come from making our electorate dumber so they will question less? When will you return to the core values that made our nation strong, sustainable and great?

The GOP is Obsessive-Compulsive

Everything is governed by a natural order. We blink when something nears our eyes; when cold we shiver, when hot we sweat; when sick the body grows tired and forces us to lie down. All of our energy then goes to battling the illness.

Sex is pleasurable. Even this was done for a reason. Imagine if it was torturous (yes, it is for some)? If sex were horrible and not pleasurable, then man would long ago have become extinct.

Sex, in nature, among animals, mammals, etc. is a natural need; like eating and like so many other innate acts which escort them through life each day. For man, however, sex has become a mix of emotions which go beyond our absolute natural need. Yes, we need it, but probably not in all the costumes, positions, places and with varying partners as we seek it out. These aspects of sex are less physical and more mental--the brain craves the act, the excitement, the smells and it drives many to ever more acts of sex.

Let it be said, there is nothing wrong with this fascination for sex. So long as sex, like anything is, kept in its place and life is not handicapped by this passion for "getting sweaty." Sex, however, like anything else, when it becomes an act of obsession than it is not good.

Prostest is next to American-li-ness

There is nothing wrong with protest. The right NOT to like a sitting president or the party in control is the Constitution-given right that makes our nation great. It is natural to protest in America. However, when the protest becomes detrimental to the nation's welfare, when the protesting (opposition) party stops offering any constructive advice and just votes as one big bloc "no" so as to prevent the nation's business from being conducted, then this is obsessive behavior. And, like any psychologist will tell you, obsessive behavior is detrimental to proper development.

The GOPCON Party has not offered one single, legitimate counter-argument to any issue in our nation since January 20 of this year. For all intents and purposes, from the moment their wreckless and child-like obsessions for tax-cuts (the boogey-man) and "less government" ("I am afraid of the dark") led us to the brink of economic disaster last September, they silently slunk (past-tense of "to slink") away, tail between their legs (or, rather, heads up their asses) and quietly waited for the democrats to start governing the nation again out of the sink-hole of their destruction.

After a summer of farcical protests, which had been preceded by even more ridiculus "tea parties" (which I originally thought kind of creative until I found out that it was Fox-"News" who promoted and launched this hysteria), the cons, despite their deep-seated belief that the healthcare reform being put forth by Obama will help our nation in the long-run, are now going too far in the destruction of our nation by launching their boats to the sails of insurance industry lobbyists.

Again, the God-fearing and Bible-thumping, Southern-accented crackers (except their Uncle Tom leader), are willing to seek short-term political/financial gain at the expense of our nation.

By Any Means Necessary

The behavior of the cons and their minions is again shameful. Recently, a leading Senate GOPCON'er said that regardless of what the President puts forth, we will seek to destroy the legislation 'by any means necessary'--filibuster, lies, scandal, obsessive behavior, foot-tapping in men's bathrooms, anything goes for them.

So in other words, regardless of whether the President puts out a plan that meets all of their demands, they will still kill it so that their short-term political gain will be greater than the gain of the average, working American. And, even more ridiculus and harder to comprehend is that many of the same nuts ranting about Obama being a communist because he wants to reform healthcare will sometime very, very soon benefit thanks to the reforms that will be enacted.

When this low-skilled worker finds himself without a job because the gains that could have been made thanks to the green revolution instead went to China, Germany and elsewhere, silly, obsessed Cleet from Arkansas will find himself uninsured because the GOP ensured that the status quo live on for another generation. He will be eating moon-pies and RC Cola for Thanksgiving whilst his obese wife rots from the inside-out because she can't get the needed operation "cuz we ain't gat dah money to pay the doc."

Obama's green revolution, which could still create millions of jobs, even whole new industries and make American an economic leader in something other than weaponry, also suffers from the abusive and obsessive idiocy of the GOPCON.

Every initiative he has put forth to make the lives of average Americans, all Americans a little better, a little sounder, a little safer, has been obsessively attacked and mocked by a vociferous and well-fianced minority of greedy, greedy Americans. Americans, whose political views would never have let their relatives even set foot in this great nation 100 years ago, sit in the safety of their well-groomed communities, many behind gates and embarass themselves and all of American by their obsessive, self-serving whining.

For the sake of our great nation, I pray to a God, not the one they worship, that President Obama succeeds. I hope he passes healthcare reform; I hope his reforms of the credit card industry stick; I hope he can force tougher and real regulations upon the giant financial houses on Wall Street; I hope he can make our future less hot and longer and filled with less rain and less hurricanes thanks to massive, massive cuts in greenhouse gases all thanks to the successful launch of our green economic revolution.

"Oh for Our Sake"

If he fails on all of those fronts, then, that whining, greedy minority of "America-haters" will have won and we, the people, the majority, will have lost. They are wealtheir than us, they are more wily than us and they have fewer morals and so their tactics are free from rules like no kicking or biting.

We must fight the good fight and win. And, if for a second it seems we will lose, always recall that the sneakiest and arguably most effective blow to an unsuspecting opponent is a good, crisp head-butt to the bridge of his nose.

And then victory will be ours! After all, it is the end result we are seeking and the means mean nothing at all...for the victors, at least.

You go, President Obama!

The Anti-America Movement grows...in our own backyard

When I open my passport, the words "United States of America" greet my eyes. When I flip through its pages, an assortment of state seals guide me through our great nation. I see the words "US Passport Agency" and other such harmless and generic terms. What I don't see are republicans and Democrats. Not present are the hysterical tea-parties, neo-fascist anti-health-care protests and other partisan aspects of our, once again, great nation.

An Award to Be Proud of...you'd think

And yet, a little less than a year after we, the America people, demonstrated to the world that two of our greatests assets as a nation still exist, the ability to peacefully elect a president and our system of balances, that mass of hysterical and anti-America idiots scoof and snort and mock when our president receives one of the most prestigious awards that exist. The conservatives, again, demonstrate their true hatred for our great nation.

I must comment on our system of balances. Peacefully electing a president is being done by more and more nations each year: great but less unique than it used to be. The world has learned from us well. What still seperates us, however, from so many is our amazing system of three branches of government: the Legislature, the Judical Branch and the Executive one. Under W and Mr. Potter, the Executive Branch gained inordinate amounts of power at the expense of the other two--many will say (including me) that an abuse of the Judicial Branch is what gave us W in the first place.

After 8 years of no leadership, corruption the likes only seen before under Reagan and Nixon, and sheer and complete incompetence--even, an obvious reluctance to govern by W (he was sitting in front of the Ranger games by 6 PM each evening and clearing brush by the months each summer at his ranch), Americans and even many of the most reactionary and the loudest in the current "I hate America" GOPCON Party were ready and willing to see W head off into that January sky on Marine Two. A sigh of relief was heard for many even feared that Mr. Potter might try to pull a military coup that January day not too long ago, such were the abuses of power by W and his coterie of flying monkeys.

Shocked and dismayed at our own seeming hatred for the values that made our nation one of the greatest in world history, foreign governments waited and hoped that our system of balances would once again prove effective. And, it did.

Since that day that Obama assumed the presidency, beyond all that he has done on a 24/7 time-clock to help our nation survive the irresponsible policies of 30 years of republican incompetence--"no government, no regulation, power to the states (sounding very similar to "power to the soviets")--President Obama has made it one of his top priorities to reinvigorate "brand America." And we, as a declining world power whose greatest weapon always was the strength of our soft culture and the lure of an America with streets paved in gold, cannot, should not underestimate the resource that "brand America" is for us.

It Earns us money and it saves lives

Everytime one of these psuedo-wealthy big-mouthes open their traps and criticize Obama, my skins crawls. If they were citing facts and real figures, it would be one thing. However, arguments like 1) he was not born in America; 2) he is a Muslim terrorist; 3) he is a communist/socialist; 4) he is expanding goverment so as take over our lives are simply ridiculus claims fed by the idiocy of Fox-TV and drug-addicts like Rush Limbaugh. Sadly, many in America get their political opinions from these entertainment outlets and confuse it for truth.

Yet, if we were to set aside the issues that divide us and look at the one thing we should all want and hope for, a strong and stable America, then the receipt of the Nobel Price for Peace by President Obama, our president, should be something to make us not just proud but safer and happier.

President Obama has not done one act which you could put your finger on and say, "ah, this is why he got it." No, but he has changed the mood in the world. If W's policies had permitted the patients (Russia's abuse of their gas diplomacy, North Korea's and Iran's nuke programs, a melting Pakistan, etc.) to take over the mental hospital--Obama's reaching out to the world has made diplomacy once again a valid tool and served as sedative to the nuts in the world.

And, if we can spare the lives of over 4000 young men and women serving in our armed forces (and tens of thousands of innocent civilians) from making the ultimate sacrifice caused by to hubris and greed of the neo-con right as they were led by W and others, then I say, President Obama: GREAT JOB! He deserves any award he can get for the sake of us and a better world.

President Obama has changed the mood in the world and being an American who lives in the "world" and has traveled to 12 nations just in the past 8 months, I can tell you this: people are thrilled by this man and the mood is one of change, of hope, of possibilities.

As a result of this feeling in the world, America's stock is going up. Despite our ailing economy, not caused by Obama, the world likes having a sane and rational America once again at the helm. Yes, the world also feels burned and slightly embarassed because of their attempts to deal with W and Mr. Potter as adults only to be spurned and even mocked by those two. President Obama must demonstrate that he can rule regardless of the destructive and obstructionist right. The world waits and it has hope, though. Hope was something they did not have under W.

Congratulations America

Our national brand equity is increasing in value thanks to President Obama and his policies, his beliefs. The Nobel Peace Prize further increases brand America's value. This is something we should not pooh-pooh, this is something we should not doubt, this is something we should not hestitate to take silent pride in.

There used to be a saying in America, before the right became so openly hostile to our nation's future, domestically it is acceptable to disagree and argue with the President; but, internationally, he is the man and we should at least respect him and hope he does well internationally for our own good.

President Obama's award is our award and the world is better for it but sadly, not even that fact is enough to snap those anti-America conservatives out their hateful, obstructionist stupor.

Shame on them all.

A Nation Held Hostage and GOP emotional sabotage

If a person were to sell a product that knowingly killed people then this person would be arrested, tried and most likely convicted. The person would then spend years in prison and all involved in the downfall of this person would feel good, neighborly and as if they had contributed to the making of a better and safer nation.

When a corporation sells a product that kills, they hide the evidence; lie about the product's negative effects; spend millions on campaign donations and to lobbyists and then, only after years of having tried to prove that their product is safe, some internal memo pops up showing that all along they knew to be true what their accusers had known: said corporation had knowingly been dealing in death/harm to Americans.

The company will be fined a mere pittance in most cases. Almost never does anyone from the company go to jail, however, for the dilemma is always: you can't arrest the corporation. For so many decades in our history, big business's goals and values have run counter to the ideal of an American nation. Big business proved itself so egocentric in the late 19th Century that many new laws were put onto the books to break up these empires of evil all for the protection of the working Joe and Jane: the little people were getting their fair shake.

Upton Sinclair went after meat packers and others in his book The Jungle and, thanks to presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, FDR and others (not Reagan, Bush I or Bush II), big business was in many respects brought to task. This does not mean, however, that their have not been instances of gross negligence over the past century. On the contrary, whereas we may have started producing cleaner, better products, we now live in a everything goes, marketing/advertising rules world where so long as you are making sales and huge profits, you are safe to produce whatever you want.

Their lost War became a Partisan one against our values

I have said it before and I will say it again, most of what is troubling or causes harm and nasty, emotive reactions in our society starts in the states which used to belong to the Confederacy; and, usually, these evils are supported by, yes, the GOP.

Let's take a look at cigarettes: the dwarves--company CEO's--appeared before Congress a decade or so ago and said that cigarettes weren't harmful. Then a while later, internal memos were leaked from decades prior showing that even their own studies proved that cigarettes caused lung cancer. They had lied under oath and did any of them go to prison? Were they fired in disgrace?

Bill Clinton, hunted by a Republican-led Congress, was eventually caught in a lie--one that had nothing to do with the original accusations and for which an "indepedent council" had been commissioned (murder, insider trading, espinage, rape, etc.). His presidency greatly suffered as a result of this distraction and so too did the American nation. But, in the parlance of the GOP since Reagan came to town (although he never would have condoned such emotive whining and abuse of power), "who cares about America, it is all about the GOP and our hold on the reins of power."

Bill Clinton was "impeached" by the House for his lying under oath about whether he had had sex. The cigarette companies were fined, no one went to prison, no one was hung and today, despite declining sales in America, they are enjoying amazing profits: billions upon billions of dollars.

I won't even start on the NRA and their evil: in history only the Nazi Party of Germany has been more fascist and destructive than this group of gun-toting losers. And yes, the vast majority of them are losers. They are cowards. They don't know how to fist-fight so they arm themselves to the teeth so they can blow away their neighbor who knocked at the door late one night for a cup of sugar--oops. Most of them are white, well-off, probably out of shape and vote Republican (and, where did this neo-Nazi party begin, yes, in the South. It was a reaction against recently enfranchised former-slaves.)

Next, and it has finally been getting its rightful blame in the obesity crisis that cripples our nation, is the anti-American company known as Coca-Cola. The most recognized brand in the world. T-shirts and memorabilia are sold through our nation and the world with the logo and "drink Coca-Cola" on shelves with the heading "Americana." This company is irresponsible and it is a bad and callous employer. I know people working for them and Coke's attitude toward their employees is simply disgusting--each one of them is like an indentured servant, unless you are in management, of course.

Many will argue that Coca-Cola is a good company simply selling a good product. It is doing what a business is supposed to do, make profits. Yes, I agree. But Coca-Cola is no better for you than cigarettes so where are the restrictions against use by minors? Why is it sold in schools? Why is it cheaper to drink Coke than bottled water? Why are we not taxing the consumption of this product--and really, I don't care that it will disproportionately hurt the poor. Coca-Cola, by the way, is from Atlanta.

Some E. coli with that burger

An industry not dominated by the South is meating packing. They gleefully distribute beef patties throughout the nation knowing that someone is likely to die from the complications of an e. coli infection. Lies, cover-ups, obfuscation, firings of line workers, etc. are just some of the tactics these monolithic, and in many cases, private companies employ to ensure that the consumer is not being protected.

How did we get to this place? How is it that we envision ourselves as the most civilized nation in the world, the one from which everyone else should learn; how everyone else should strive to live and yet we have big business, which provides us with 99.9% of everything we touch, eat, see and wear in the course of day, picking and choosing which one of us will suffer as a result of their quest for increased short-term profits?

The GOP loves to scream, and they do so in that squeaky, white-is-right, faux-patriotic way at their candle-lit rallies (quite often in Southern states), less government; government is evil. Government regulation is needed.

Bush II and his "wage war and cut taxes" (complete idiocy, look at our economy now!) mantra has financially bankrupted our nation making things like an economic stimulus hard to come by; making universal health care something that could potentially break the banks (oh, and the banks--no regulation). Bush II, led by Reagan, did everything he could to bankrupt our nation so that the evil, government, would have nothing left to regulate the greedy and destructive impulse inherent in all big corporations.

Here we sit today. Our food supply is tainted not by terrorists (not yet, anyway) but by stupid, anti-America Republicans. Our cities flood and the government sits by, well actually, flies over and shakes its collective head: what a pity. People are paralyzed by burgers, other people, hopped up on a sixes of Coors, yank high-powered machine guns out of trunks of cars and gun down their neighbors; children are addicted to sodas and sweets and now 48% of all American youth under 15 are considered obese--look at the health care dilemmas awaiting our nation tomorrow!

The conservatives will say that the obesity is caused by bad parenting; 50 years ago, parents weren't necessarily better, government was. And, it tended to work a bit more effectively because it had funding; because it had a mission: make our nation safe for its people.

The Republican Party is a criminal organization. It is a grouping of home-grown terrorists with no interest in making our nation better, stronger, safer. Today, the Senate said the health bill making its way to the President's desk will lower the deficit: guess who is against it nevertheless? "Big government, big brother, blah-blah-blah." "Shut up! Go delay some confirmation so a key Obama advisor won't be able to do his or her job to make our nation better after the mismanagement of GOPCON rule!"

Enjoy a Coke and a burger today, or better yet, pull that pistol out of your belt and and play a round of Russian roulette: same game just different weapons.

Thank You, President Obama

Dear President Obama,

Nearly a year ago, 28 years of hyper-deregulating government policies led us and the world to the brink of economic collapse. You assumed office almost 6 months after this moment, 15 September 2008, and since then, through partisan action and your strong and decisive leadership, we are stepping back from the precipice. We can take a breath and whether others will join me or not, I don't know, but I want to say: Thank you.

Of course, it has not been an easy road for you, for the country, for the world. Many are still without work; new businesses are not opening up and credit is still not readily available to most; yet, during this time, and despite the best (or worst) efforts of the Republican Party, you have fought the fight for the American people.

Laying policies that will lower costs over the long-term; depriving greedy, and in many instances, morally reprehensible big businesses from their obsession with short-term profits (see finance industry, auto industry, energy companies, insurance companies, maybe even Coca-Cola); you have been harassed and mocked by a substantial minority of Americans and what used to be a relevant political party in our nation. Yet, you persevered.

The members of that party, I call it the GOPCON Party (GOP meets CON-servatives), have done everything they could to obstruct you; to prevent you from not just leading our nation out of the morass of 8 misguided years of abject incompetence, but, even in many cases from simply governing. They want America to fail.

You, Mr. President, and your party--although not all of them--initially strove for bi-partisan solutions to problems that had not been seen in 70 years. They, however, chose a talk-radio approach to our nation's future by littering the present with emotional garbage, nonsensical delays, demagoguery, rebel-rousing and tactics so common to roving groups of neo-facsists: fear and threats.

President Obama, I am proud to be an American again. I was shamed by how our nation had behaved over the last 8 years. I live abroad and truthfully, I tend to be somewhat of a loud-mouth and don't fear too many people so not many foreigners could scare me in their overt disgust for our antics since W became president; however, it has not been easy. Many people didn't so much as hate us as they were simply shocked that we, America, would behave so stupidly, be so reactionary and twice vote in a man who could barely speak a sentence that even the dumbest Americans could understand, let alone bright ones.

Your policies have set the auto industry back on a track that at least resembles principles from Business 101: build products that people want to buy. You are trying to get our nation to see the benefits of a green revolution and just how many jobs could be created should "we", I mean those so-called wealthy businessmen ever lobbying for tax-cuts so they could invest in American businesses, use our once great American ingenuity to lead the world in this field--instead of giving this too off to China.

Your Accomplishments

You have fought the credit card companies and made it safer for us to use credit cards. Their irresponsible and predatory customer-trolling policies were nothing more than legalized loan-sharking--who hasn't been cheated by a credit card company? But, changes have been made. You, the president, the government, is forcing them, a monstrous corporate entity against which we, small, hardworking, Americans simply have no recourse, to change their ways. Good job!

The environment bill could have been better but I am a gradualist. If you try to go too far then the "system" will stand to lose too much money and it will prevent you from doing anything. Again, hats off for being a pragmatist. Next time, we will do better. The clunker program was anything but; yet, if we listen to those idiots on the right, they will say this too was farcical. Name one program, Mr. President, that they have supported or passed that has made our nation better in the past 30 years.

Soon, you will save tax-payer money by cutting out the banks as the middlemen in the student loan process and again, despite what you can be sure will be GOPCON obstructionism, the quality of American's lives, those of the "disregarded majority", will be set on firmer ground. You will fight the fight against big business by going after obesity. If people cannot smoke--I am not a smoker--because it harms them and us, why are companies allowed to poison us with these sugary, fake-foods. Why is 30% of our nation allowed to drain our nation's resources because they make life choices that turn them into herds of scootering-zooming fatties?

Finally, President Obama, I sleep well at night knowing that you are doing your best to make our nation as great as it could've been had the GOPCON Party not stopped the wheels of modernity; had we not been side-tracked by sheer and unadulterated stupidity, greed, contradiction and shameless fake-religiosity and anti-Americanism.

You need to be civil to the likes of that idiot southern congressman, Joe Wilson. I don't have to be--I still blame that state for firing the first shot. So, until you are ready to completely and fully accept their political irrelevance as a modern day political party and govern as if they didn't exist, we will continue to fight the battle for you.

The America in which you and I want to live, Mr. President, does not condone such antics like what were seen on the floor of the Congress when you were speaking. The America you and I love, voices our opposition, and then when the nation needs decisions and governance, we make decisions and govern: the GOPCON Party has chosen to extract itself from governing the nation. They should be ashamed, they should be impeached.

What is the next problem we will tackle, President Obama? Perhaps, we can start taking away their guns?

Par for the Course

They should be ashamed, but, they won't be.

There are things like, let's see...a constitution. ""Ah, that's just an outdated piece of paper," they mutter over grits drowned in butter. There is a court that is supposed to make decisions based the letter of the law. "Yeah, but, most of those justices were chosen by republican presidents so they had to choose W for the presidency," they rejoice whilst staring at maps of the world where thanks to our troops "democracy" has taken root.

There is even an office, an oval one, in which sits the highest, elected official in the land. He is the President of ALL the United States of America. Shame was brought to this great office by Nixon; by a republican congress-led witch hunt, which did to Clinton what is trying with some success to do to Obama--spread lies and hate against the president so as to distract him from his agenda and wait until he makes a major mistake. Yes, Clinton was stupid to start that affair given the HUAC-style pressure he was under from a nation held hostage by Newt and company.

W brought shame to the White House, to the nation; but, he was and still is called President Bush and in all my dislike of him, I would be awed to meet one of less than 50 men in the past 200 plus years to have held the title of President of the United States of America.

Last night, some southern Joe from none other than the state that fired the first shot against federal troops in 1861 at Fort Sumter, had the utter indecency to shame the office again by screaming (like a spoiled, rotten brat) "you lie." Not since a southern senator beat a northern one with his cane into a coma in the 1850's has such a display been seen.

Shame on you! Shame on the GOPCON Party!

President Obama is all ya all's president so respect him, or at least tje office, an shut the hell up, Joe!

A Common Good

Ownership is a good thing. Owning a car, a home, a dog, a bike, a chair and even a garbage can are all good and helpful things.

Each one of those things requires certain care in their respective handling so as to ensure that they will be maximized in their use for us. Each of these things, to a greater or lesser extent, is a resource for the owner and even for non-owners in some cases.

Each of these things becomes a part of our routines of life, a life woven into a common one. We sit in the chair to eat, read the paper or surf the web. We walk the dog and pet him, relaxing on the couch after a long day soaking up the unconditional love of a good pup. The garbage can, if properly used, sorts our recyclables and this act in our personal life adds to the common one which makes it better--good.

Ownership

American society is an ownership society. Again, there is nothing wrong with this; well, there are many wrongs but the overall basis for this concept upon which our nation was founded is not wrong. Yet, when people own things, they strive to ensure that their neighborhoods are good, clean, safe and happy. If all of this, then a town or a neighborhood can be a great place to own a home, a dogs, bikes, balls, TV's, bbq's, etc. By acting in a manner that is conducive to an overall good, one contribute to a sounder, common good.

A common good is something that the GOP and the conservatives don't want for America. I believe this from the bottom of my heart. This is not rhetoric. They do everything they can to put the interests of America behind the needs and interests of a) the wealthy and b) big business. How else can we justify what they did to our nation during W's 8 long years? How else we can justify the way they are creating panic and hysteria over the president's courageuous efforts to overhaul health care? They mocked the clunkers program--an obvious benefit to some but at the end of the day, a benefit to all.

There are so-called preachers wishing President Obama dead and there are talking-heads on Fox hinting that something "radical" must be done to stop him. Is this good for our nation this hate? How is it that when W was lying to the world about Iraq, all debate on the need for that invasion was considered "anti-American" and "support for the terrorists"; and now, when we are trying to pull our nation back from the brink of bankruptcy by overhauling the greatest drain on our nation's wealth, the failed healthcare system, conservatives and the GOP are turning the debate into a screaming match while wrapping themselves in the buntings and banners of silent Old Glory?

The Media

The emasculated and fading-from-relevance, traditional media is not questioning or condemning these tactics. Why? Again, the profit incentive. They too need to make money, they are looking after their own interests. The Iraqi invasion was exciting. It was good for sales of newspapers and magazines. Many a smart journalist probably knew as I that the "truth" W was selling was about as accurate as a history book written by Soviet historians. Those same journalists also knew that uncovering W's deceit would sell still more papers and magazines, etc--help them and their interests.

Writing an article with the facts and figures about the healtcare dilemma, showing support for the president and why these conservatives and the GOP are simply wrong and even anti-American, is boring. Such journalistic responsibility can't compete with the lies of Fox News, the reprehensible and irrresponsible criticisms by Cheney of Obama's policies so why try, they figure.

With no regard for the nation's rules, mores and precedents before him in regards to governing and the US Constitution, Mr. Potter (Cheney) has again broken with protocol and less than 6 months out of office, already, he is vocally challenging the president; trying to plant the seeds of doubt, hate. When will death knock on his door I ask? It will be a great day for our nation when he dies and I will be the first to shout with joy. (So Republican of me, such anger. Imagine, waiting for someone to die. So, non-Christian of me.)

At a time when our nation needs to gather behind our president as he struggles to lead us to a better place, the lies and emotions of the conservatives threaten to destroy our president, our nation. Why? Because they want to be re-elected, they want to limit more abortions, kill more criminals, invade more nations which were not threatening our good, embarass us on the world stage more often, ruin the environment further, give more tax breaks to the billionaires, bankrupt more local governments and states further: California, arguably our greatest state, is stricken by disasterous fires and bankruptcy.

A Genius Idea

Cars pulling into a Burger King in New Jersey drive over a medal speed bump at the drive in and energy is created and stored. Eventually, it is hoped that this would be used at all drive-thrus, toll-boothes, etc. This invention received stimulus money from Obama's "failed stimulus package" (so say the conservatives). If used at all the drive-thrus and in other places throughout a town of 15,000 people, 30% of its energy needs can be taken care of in this manner. This is a simply genius invention which will do wonders in lowering energy costs. This is something that never would have seen the light of day under a republican administration.

A woman was interviewed in a local paper in New Jersey about how she would feel if these things were put around the town" "So long as it doesn't mess up my routine, I don't care. But, if it gets in my way, don't need'em." What has happened to our "can do", "community first" attitude? When did we become so obsessed with our own so-called personal good? When did the cult of comfort, ease and leisure replace our belief in the American nation? Have we become so self-possessed that we can't slow the car a little, add 22 seconds onto our drive to the store, for the sake of creating energy to run the street lights in our town? For the sake of maybe, just maybe, staving off the disastrous effects of global warming by a decade or two: a common good.

What has happened to the common good and who is left to make sure it survives? President Obama is one and this is why the conservatives are finding it so easy to railroad his healthcare overhaul. He has proven himself to be naive and foolish: he believes in the America that drove our troops across battlefields in faraway countries, in their efforts to accomplish the mission and lead us to victory.

He wants to make ALL of us better and not just some of us. How cynical we have grown as a nation. We are more like Europe than we want to admit.

Summer Shorts

For good or bad, better or worse, I am back to my editorial rantings on "what I see, feel, hear, eat, smell, know, don't know, think I know or feel like acting like I know but don't really know about."

It has been a long month since my self-inflicted bout of silence. I felt that I was getting in too deep, sounding a bit angry and being consumed by my inherent hatred of the conservative wing of the GOP (I don't dislike the other wings of the GOP, after all, who hated the Bad News Bears?)

My seething disgust for the cons was drawing me away from rational thought and I found myself succumbing to their eternal war which evokes emotional outbursts devoid of intellectual thought--I too was becoming the demogogic diatribe, the shadow of Limbaugh only standing to his left.

Having cleaned the head and spent some time in the promised land, America, I am back and ready to set at it again with earnest.

Clunkers

Man, isn't it nice when you see the federal government actually demonstrating that there are some intelligent and America-first (read: not just Big Business but all Americans, rich and poor) people still involved?

The clunker program had it problems and of course the usual suspects were against it--although I am sure that many of them made trade-ins and received the $4500 check from the government--but, for the most part, it was a wonderful and successful program. It was precisely what our government has been void of for the past 8 years under Republican rule: creative, progressive, take-action-now thinking/governing. America will be better off for it.

Overall 690,000 cars were sold thanks to this program with Toyota leading the way. The fact that the Japanese automaker was number one in sales again demonstrates just how bad our auto industry has been over the past two decades. Chrysler, however, did finish second.

Many Republicans shouted that this was middle-class welfare (and tax cuts for the billionaires isn't welfare for the rich?). Last time I checked, though, I think the backbone of America's power was it's well-developed middle class, so what is the problem?

Also, it seems that if this $3 billion investment by the government resulted in the sales of 690,000 new cars, isn't that a stimulus to the economy? Yes, the good old cons, always against America.

Health Care

All I can say about this spectacle of neo-Nazi heckling and white-led rebel-rousing is: obstructionism, obstructionism, obstructionism.

They have absolutely nothing else to offer but fear-mongering (see GOP Scare Tactics and the 'War on Terrorism' due out soon by Eichmann, Hitler and Goring Publishing and written by Cheney and Rumsfeld) and lies: "death committees." Sweet baby Jesus, couldn't they have come up with something more Dr. Suessian like yuzz-a-ma-tuzz or grikly-gructus or diffendoofer committees? Now, that would have at least shown that they had made some progress since their last great quotable: "drill, baby, drill," not to be confused with "Seig Heil."

Sadly, our new president seems a bit overwhelmed by these tactics as they are truly overwhelming and when we have a president who actually strives to make our nation better for all (and to repair the damage of GOP control), one can get distracted. However, my good friend Paul Krugman writes on a regular basis helpful editorials and I quite often respond to the Obama's when they email letters about what they are doing.

So, yes, to the chagrin of the cons, we will pass health care legislation and we will probably increase the deficit but whereas endless tax cuts for the wealthy and endless wars against all middle-eastern nations that don't look like fat, balding white men don't lead to savings for the nation (or increased tax receipts), the savings gained from health care will eventually lead to a lowering of the deficit. Inaction will only increase the deficit and lead to our ultimate bankrupting and this is what they--yes, I said it, "they" (who you calling 'they'?)--want.

Wal-Mart

Re-energized from a lovely end-of-summer trip to New Jersey and surrounding states, I marvelled at the Wal-Mart commercials on TV.

"Live Better. Save Money." In this stylishly done ad, they show some pretty cool cats enjoying USDA steaks (read: "yo, Mexican boy, if you can't clean the carcass in 3 seconds of shit and other gorey matter, then get off the line. A little e coli is good for people.") and sitting wearing nice clothes around a stylish dining room table.

A) All of the people are thin and seem to have a modicum of intelligent thought in their heads; B) there is no 'B', I just needed my rant to seem deeper. Really, though, the whole notion that by buying--yes, buying--shit made in China (and never in America), somehow we will live better because we are saving money on that shit, makes my head spin. Call me a commie or whatever, but, I will never comprehend why and how consumption is the answer to our problems.

Granted, we need things to live and to survive. Families have needs beyond what I can imagine (having no children yet of my own) and when on a tight budget a place like Wal-Mart is helpful. I am not against that end of the bargain and I am grateful that there is such a place to keep prices in perspective for we all know that Big Business and their lobbyists (read: GOP) are evil; however, let's call it what it is: Wal-Mart kills small American businesses faster than the Chinese and rabbits can breed.

Every dollar spent in Wal-Mart is money out of our nation; it is killing a small business downtown--not that they offer much anymore (thanks to Wal-Mart). Wal-Mart, however, could lead the nation in a American small-business revival if it too decided to ensure that at least 50% (or even 60%) of everything sold there was being made in America.

Imagine, the increased prices by such a policy would be offset by the higher-wage-paying jobs. Sadly, however, when my wife and me try to buy "typical American souvenirs" for friends in Russia, we are always shocked to realize that everything you touch--even the Amish star I bought from an Amish store--is made in China!

We tried this time to buy only "made in America" souvenirs and guess what? Our bag of gifts was empty.

Well, enough for now, I am starting to sweat.

Soon, it will be time for College football (Go Knights), the World Series (Go Yanks) and the Oktoberfest ("another beer, please.").

Tomorrow Should be Better than Today

In a nutshell (Brazil Nut), a liberal can be summed up as a person who believes that society (and he being a driver/participant in it) works to ensure that yesterday's ills and wrongs can be overcome. The resulting effect of this triumph over the "wrongs," be they technological or wrought by basic human prejudice, is that everyone eventually will live a better, happier life.

In a nutshell, a conservative believes this is all pie-in-sky nonsense and that it is each man for himself, survival of the fittest. And, if the "fittest" have a conscience then they donate to charities of their choices.

The Rule of Thumb

An economist by the name of Arthur Okun stated that when unemployment drops by 1%, GDP drops correspondingly by 2% to 3%. Many hesitate to call this a law so therefore, it is called a "rule of thumb."

Over the past 30 years, our economic ups and downs have all revolved around either the creation of virtual wealth; speculation on bubbles in the investment arena such as internet/techonology and then the real esate bubble; and, ultra-hyper-mass consumption leading to the "virtual ownership" through the abuse of consumer credit.

Conservatives and believers in the tooth fairy still like to claim that tax cuts were responsible for much of the growth of this era but what they are not willing to admit is that the vast Reagan and W tax cuts came during periods of massive deregulation of our banking and financial markets. Perhaps, it was the loss of oversight on these industries which led to the increases in investment?

Progress

30 years ago, we had no internet and the government, led by rising stars like Al Gore and then Bill Clinton, wisely aided the development of this technology. The internet today has arguably had more impact than any development since the creation of electricity. Had W been president, then we would still be mailing letters and calling each other from telephones attached to kitchen walls.

In these 30 years, we have also seen a massive assualt on modernity. The republicans/conservatives, led by their bible-thumping breathen from the Southern states, have reacted in many of the ways that Islam has reacted to US encroachment on their youth cultures via our enticing soft culture: Benjamin Barber a pompous but very wise former-Rutgers professor called it Jihad vs. McWorld. Fundamental, theocratic cultures are being threatened by the internet and its uncontrollable morals and so we see violent reaction.

These reactions manifested themselves on 9/11 and they have united and made powerful the GOP since 1994. Barry Goldwater was liberal in many of his views compared to what the conservatives of today espouse as rational, intellectual thought. They call any progressive behavior communist and as is typical in reactionary, fear-driven, change-adverse societies (I happen to live in one today), forward-looking, intellectual thought is called "pseudo" and "faux."

Yet...tomorrow may not be better

For 30 years, we have seen the lives of Americans made "better" thanks to the increase of consumer credit. Yet, today, we have more Americans bankrupt or in crippling debt than at any other time in our history. We have not seen the advance of any serious, long-lasting technologies, other than in the military industrial complex, during this period.

At the expense of our long-term well-being, for the sake of short-term profits and massive bonuses, conservatives have poohed-poohed investment in any area that might have paved the way for gradual and positive development in our economic infrastructure: what are we capable of leading the world in today other than in the field of arms? Obesity? Soft culture?

Driven by greed and void of the so-called 'invisible hand', big business has been free to make profits off of their profits without showing anything other than virtual wealth and needless consumer goods.

In the never-ending quest for lowered margins so that quarterly bonuses could be ever larger, big business, patriots all of them, "Jesus-sayers" predominately from Southern states and almost always conservatives, willingly drove their businesses out of America. Unemploying the American workers, they espoused that the market, the gospel of the profit incentive, demands such sacrifice. And so, today, we see that as 1% of Americans join the ranks of the unemployed, the GDP is dropping faster than it did in the past--and vice versa: Okun's rule is screamingly conservative compared to today's reality.

Another consequence of our failed experiment at a greed-driven economy void of governmental regulation is that these jobs, it is estimated, won't return to our eonomy after the downturn subsides. The lost jobs are lost for real because places like China and India and Mexico are now doing the work that Americans did just 20 years ago; but, for a mere fraction of the cost and all for the sake of the quarterly profits of that shrinking pool of owners.

Obama's Vision

They obstruct and they obstruct yet the conservatives haven't yet found the key ingredient to dismantling the man's vision. He has vision and being an American, I am addicted to vision and national goals: a man on the moon by the end of the decade, only fear we should fear, ask not what your country can do for you, etc., etc.

President Obama is trying to make the changes we found impossible to make beginning in January 1981 when greed came to town. President Reagan had vision, granted, but he also had an economic understanding that was perfect for the nation in which he came of age. By letting Detroit off the hook on gas emission requirements in the mid-80's and pretty much paving the way for SUV's, Ronald Reagan took our economy back to the post-WWII era of useless consumer crap in all shapes and colors for everyone at the lowest possible price. Which has directly led us to where we are today: nowhere.

We are for all intents and purposes bankrupted as a nation. What is our plan for going forward? More consumption for the sake of consumption? More unregulated profits thanks to super risky mortgages, etc.? President Obama is trying to make us a green nation because he knows that this may be one of our last pillars of world economic leadership. We are America. We used to be the smartest nation until taxs were cut so far that federal funding dried up for research grants resulting in a dumbing down of our universities (although, we still are the best in this area, the world is catching up fast).

Our college grads speak English poorly. Too many are focused on making big and quick profits in finance. We have lost our way and been dumbed down thanks to the cultural battle against modernity. We have to seize the golden opportunity which is sitting before us and we must become the world's leader of all green technologies. Europe and Asia, led of course by China, are making great strides at capturing this new and growing segment of the world's market.

It is time for us to boldly strive forward, like Americans, and to conquer yet another frontier for the betterment of our nation. If this means that we need government leadership and funding then so be it. Because one thing is for sure, the sales of more cans of soda or bigger bags of beef jerky at Wal-Mart are not going to preserve our place at the top for much longer.

Conservative response: "need to cut taxes. The market will make the necessary adjustments and then all will be good again." Been there, tried that and look where it got us.

Truths and Lies--Right to Life Hypocrisy

Recently, while fielding the condescending fly-balls of a conservative as he fungoed sound-bite after sound-bite to me: "Obama is a Muslim. Obama is making America socialist. Obama is a tax and spend liberal. Obama's stimulus has failed. Obama supports murder. D.C. is more violent than any other city and it has a no-handgun law. Blah-blah and blah;" I made a diving grab of one of his more egregiously boring and emotion-less diatribes and decided: "this one would not get away."

This conservative, like the millions of other Stepford cons with their love for country music, chewing tobacco, Reagan and fraternities, argued that while the Constitution does guarantee the "right to bear arms"; it did not permit for the right of a woman to have an abortion. Having successfully pooh-poohed this bold attempt at turning the US Constitution into silly putty, we got right down to the issue at hand: he told me that "God didn't like abortion."

This answer impressed me the most. On the one hand, if he had such an open line to God, then I have a whole list of questions that I would like to pose; and, the top is when will Rutgers football get into and stay in the top 10? But, needless to say, neither does he have an open line nor God's email address. When the cons say that "God" is against abortion, what they are saying is that they are.

The Grand Hypocrisy

That fact established and feeling as if I were getting my sea legs, it was decided that ever bolder forays into the swamp-like thought process of the conservative needed to be made. Stepping carefully, lest I fall into one of those emotive traps lined with lime-like emotional idocies for which there simply is no answer (Barack Hussein Obama is really a Muslim), the grand hypocrisy needed to be scaled and conquered.

Cons (Conservatives and Republicans) refer to the evilness of abortion. They say abortion is murder. Many were simply gleeful and rejoiced when they learned that that doctor was killed in his church in Kansas. His sin, they say, was that he was the only doctor in the US doing third trimester abortions. Whether I agree with such an abortion is not the matter of discussion here (probably I don't but I would need to consider all of the circumstances).

Their joy at his tragic murder in church can easily be reacted to with the same disgust and anger that we Americans felt on 9/11 when CNN showed crowds of Muslims celebrating the deaths of so many Americans: terror and the ill effects of it should not be high-fived. In both instances, laws were broken and most importantly the law of God, "thou shalt not kill."

And this leads us to the hypocrisy. If abortion is murder then we can assume that the cons are God-fearing folk who are against murder. Yet, they celebrate the murder of this doctor in a place as invoilable as the church on a Sunday morning. How?

Then, we can statistically say (I don't have these numbers up to date but when I worked on my master's thesis in 1994, they were accurate), the majority of children aborted are done so for economic reasons. A family, one perhaps mired in poverty, admits that it does not have the means to provide for this expected child and so, they abort the pregnancy in, quite often, the earliest possible stages.

Now, this is the part which simply boggles my mind. When we so-called liberals admit that abortion should not be abused we want to provide for people who happen to fall into high-risk groups for such behavior, family planning training. Like math, planning for a family which includes instruction and information about contraceptives, is something that needs to be taught from the earliest possible age: the moment a girl or boy are capable of mating.

Yet, the cons are almost always against such training. They consider contraception to be against God's will. When, this is the hypocrisy which really turns up the heat on my brain to a level where some steam begins to leak out, babies are born into families and communities that have had little or no training as to the why's/how's/if's of starting families void the necessary economic means the cons go berserk; in these communities where there has been no easy access to contraception and suddenly a young woman of 20 has three children already, the cons will scream should God-forbid any public assistance be offered to help this young woman provide at least a bowl of Trix for her growing kiddies each morning.

When the cons cannot guarantee that in fact no pubic assistance will be offered to these "people of loose morals," then they start cutting taxes left and right. And as it says on page two of the "How to be a Real Con" instructional manual, the tax-cutting tool is really not so to "put more money into the hands of the wealthy so they can invest more;" No, it is so the cons can take more money out of the hands of the government thereby leaving ever less and less in government coffers for nefarious things like welfare, family planning, etc.

Finally, I mentioned that he should at least like the idea of "Head Start" programs in these communities overflowing with underage, single moms. He told me that "Head Start" was just another one of those liberal 'we know better than y'all' things and that it was 'elitist.' Choosing not to fall into the trap, I merely turned away and let those words drift off like balloons into the night sky. And then after about a half hour of silence, he asked me: "What is Head Start anyway?"

I told him what it was and he listened. We clarified that abortion was not being done because the child had already been born. He realized that some of the kids might actually learn something and pull themselves up out of the poverty into which they were born. When I told him it was like teaching them how to fish rather than buying them the fish, he smiled. I had hit home. And then, we got going on hunting and how guns should be in the pockets of all Americans, etc, etc.

We all need guns to defend against the criminals. When I mentioned that had not so many children been born into abject proverty, maybe, crime would be lower. He called me a racist again. As if whites aren't born into poverty? He also managed to rethink his position on Head Start and said that a good, traditional family could provide what Head Start did and that deterence would come by having more prisons.

And, the hypocrisy continued. They are against murder. Aren't guns used to kill? But, they will say that it is not guns but people that kill. Yes, their lies and their truths are one in the same so be careful or else you too will find yourself knee deep in lime and soon you will have no knee left.