No, Trump is not Hitler. He is a Grave Threat to American Unity.

   As readers of this blog know, I am not an admirer of Donald Trump. He is vain, cruel, narcissistic, arrogant, and just possibly off his rocker. He makes a mockery of Jesus's command to love God with all your heart and all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself. His Republican buddies seen to not realize that the teachings of Ayn Rand are much closer to Satan than Jesus. At no point does Jesus preach rampant individualism, egomania, avarice, or hatred. God in his Commandments has stated that there shall be no gods other than Me. This includes capitalism, communism, and "the market". In short, I don't like the guy. The behavior of many his followers (certainly not all) is appalling. But I do not think that Trump is another Hitler. I do thing that he is a grave threat to the unity of the federation that is the United States of America.
     I have several reasons for believing Trump is not another Hitler.
     1. Trump just doesn't have the necessary skills. Hitler was an authentic political genius. He had the ability to inspire a mighty nation and bend it to his will. The fact that he used his genius for evil does not change this. Trump just might be a genius also, but if he is a genius, it is in self promotion, not leading a mass movement. He inspires much hatred and very little love. His support is broad but only an inch deep. As of this writing he has been President for less than a week and things are already showing signs of falling apart. It will get worse for him rather quickly.
     2. People who think Trump is another Hitler confuse the definitions of nation and state.  A state is a sovereign political entity under one government whose lines you can see on any decent world atlas. The United Kingdom, Canada, India, and Indonesia are examples of states that include more than one nation. A nation  is a group of people who share, or believe they share, a common culture, history, language, ethnic background, literature and symbols. For example, the United Kingdom is a state. England, Scotland, and Wales are nations. (Great Britain is just the name of an island). Quebec is a separate nation included in the state of Canada. A country can be both a nation and a state, like France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.  Kurdistan is an example of a stateless nation that bleeds into the boarders of three states.
     The problem in the United States is that people believe it is a nation when it really is a confederation of nations under one state. Don't believe me? The Civil War was really a war between  nations that had very little in common with one another. Today, there is very little uniting, say, Massachusetts and Mississippi other than a common national state. They hate each other. There is no way in Hell that Massachusetts will allow itself to be taken over by fundamentalist Christians imposing their version of Sharia Law. Efforts to impose secularism on Mississippi and Alabama have met with constant, unceasing resistance. Why? Because Massachusetts and Mississippi are parts of very different nations that have very little in common and in fact despise one another! We cannot even agree on the definitions of such basic concepts as freedom, liberty, patriotism, and what the flag means. War and Peace? Health care? Racial Relations?  Forget it.  Chicago is part of a third nation. Los Angeles is part of yet another. Same with New York, Seattle, and Denver. Hell, Miami is a nation of its own! The idea of someone placing the entire United States under fascism is laughable. The reason Hitler came to power was that Nazi Germany was a very homogenous nation-state with a strong culture of conformity. Even someone with the evil genius of Hitler could not unite the U.S.A. by the force of his will. Even if he wanted to, Donald Trump would not even come close.
     3. Donald Trump's supporters  just don't have it in them. Many (certainly not all!) of Trump's supporters are sullen, indolent, and ignorant. A belief in unearned privilege based on race or religion debases a people of  its character and breeds decadence. Look at the Confederate States of America. White South Africa. Northern Ireland. Saudi Arabia. Are these or were these healthy societies? Whites in America are suffering the same social pathologies that blacks suffered a generation ago. Crystal meth and OxyContin are the new crack cocaine. Births out of wedlock have  reached the same levels that blacks in the ghetto had thirty years ago. The late Eric Hoffer in his classic book on mass movements states that The True Believer is willing to make unbelievable sacrifices and subsume his whole self to the cause. This does not look like America in 2017. Not even close. If things turn bad, people are much more likely to turn on Trump than to follow him. Will his successor be good or bad? We don't know.
    I don't think we do not have to worry about a fascist takeover of America. We do have to worry about America breaking up into its component nations. Yesterday, California Governor Jerry Brown fired a warning shot across Trump's bow. He essentially said that he will not put up with Trump's shenanigans and to remember that California could be an independent nation in its own right.  Some people have already had the idea that California could secede from the left, much as Texans have often talked about seceding from the right. Indeed, what do we have keeping us together? Not much. The Constitution. Inertia. A belief in American Exceptionalism based on a world that no longer exists. That's about it. Colin Woodard in his excellent book American Nations said it best, in the last paragraph on the United States in his book:

      "But one thing is certain; if Americans seriously want the United States to continue to exist in something like its current form, they had best respect the fundamental tenets of our unlikely  union. It cannot survive if we end the separation of church and state or institute the Baptist equivalent of Sharia Law. We wont hold together if presidents appoint political ideologues to the Justice Department or the Supreme Court of the United States. or if party loyalists try to win elections by trying to stop people from voting rather than winning them with their ideas. The union cannot function if national coalitions continue to use House and Senate rules to prevent important issues from being debated in the open because members know their positions wouldn't withstand public scrutiny. Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more corrupted than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion,, or near universal consensus on many fundamental issues. The United States needs its central government to function clearly, openly, and efficiently because its one of the  few things binding us together"

So far, Trump and his GOP buddies have done everything to flout national unity. I would add gerrymandering, the continued existence of the Electoral College because of inertia and the idea that people who live in rural areas are "Real Americans" and city dwellers our not, Citizens United, and the dirty tricks that have been indulged in since Nixon, what they charmingly call "ratfucking". The horrible truth is that the United States will not turn fascist because the union will break up long before this happens. To prevent this from happing, Trump must stop or we must stop Trump. We still have time, but it is running out. Quickly.

  If we continue to indulge in the worst side of our natures, the USA will break up. We will become much less than the sum of our parts. Much more vulnerable to  external threat. That would be a tragedy for us and for the world.

Don't Worry- Donald Trump Will Obey Orders.

     First off, what do we know about Donald Trump? He made his fortune using OPM- Other's People's Money and not paying it back  He has filed four bankruptcies, (or is it five?). He once lost almost a billion dollars in a year and has been sucking off the tax writeoffs ever since.
    Second- what do we know about money? That it is just a concept. That it is not backed by anything. Money only has value if the person you give it to has confidence that he can spend it somewhere else. If people lose confidence in the value of their money, it becomes just so much toilet paper, only less absorbent.
    Third- what do we know about China? They owe their prosperity by exporting huge amounts of cheap manufactured goods without restraint, destroying tens of millions of  Americans' livelihood. They have lent us $TRILLIONS$ so we can continue to buy piles of their cheap crap to keep them afloat.
     If Donald Trump tries to Make America Great Again by cutting off the flow of Chinese imports, China will retaliate my demanding payment of the trillions America borrowed  from them. Then President Trump will do what he does best- default. That's right. The United States of America in Default. The good old USA not paying its bills. See what happens Mr. Tea Party, when the world no longer accepts dollars for payment that have been made worthless by the Huckster in Chief. We Americans take so much for granted. Wait until you get a taste of anarchy.
     This will never happen.
      Hey folks, Wall Street, the Pentagon, the CIA, official unelected Washington, and Silicon Valley have WAY too much at stake my allowing America's Most Beloved Reality Show Star to play Russian roulette with their fortune (and our future).. A couple of goons will get Trump in a dark room and tell  the Donald the facts of life. The Donald will obey. He has no choice. Of course, the Con Artist in Chief probably already knew this.
      All the poor working class white people will have their hopes crushed. Again. The factories will not be rebuilt. The "jobs" will not be coming back. They have been gone for 40 freaking years now. I really don't think most of Trump's white supporters will care, as long as they all can continue to look down on all those black and brown people. It is never about economics. Its about class privilege. It was the same during the Civil war, when an army of starving poor whites fought like demons so they could feel themselves better than black slaves. It will be the same today. Trump just might try to build that wall. Many might be deported, or continue to get locked up, or get their skulls cracked. Yep, (white) America will cheer, at least those who have not succumbed to despair. Just don't expect any jobs. Or America to be great again.
     So America, go shopping! If you can afford it. Have a six pack of beer!  It seems that we continue to not have the moral fiber to make the transformative changes America most desperately needs. The rest of us not transfixed by The Donald Trump Show will continue to rely on the Holy Sprit for strength and fortitude. Its not like we can rely on our fellow Americans.            

 

I don't give a damm about what motivated Trump supporters.

Oh Boy, not again.
The New Yorker once again printed another lengthy "think piece" on What Motivates Trump Supporters. This poor, good soul attended numerous Trump rallies, interviewed a lot of his fans, and like a good liberal, desperately tried To Make Sense Of It All. Being a Good Liberal, he really tried To Keep An Open Mind. Tried Really Hard as a matter of fact.
     Pardon me if I don't give a rat's ass.
     You see, if you were to put Jesus Christ, Moses, Mohammad, Confucius, Buddha, Plato, and Freud into a room and told them to put together a moral code for humanity, they  would come which much the same code we have now. The one we learned in kindergarten. Love your neighbor as yourself. Self Sacrifice is good. Greed and selfishness are bad. Do onto others as you would want them to do to you. Everybody has an immortal soul. And so on and so forth.  We all know the moral code. It is ingrained in our souls.
    Donald Trump, his supporters, and the corporate bastards who are ruining this country, have chosen to ignore this morality. We all know what is Good. These people have chosen to ignore it and do Evil. They have chosen to behave like spastic schoolchildren. Look how naughty we are! I'm as racist and stupid as I wannabe!  Why should I give a damm about what their motivations are. They are Evil. Period.  In a world where Jesus and anyone who has thought about the power of love, these people have chosen to hate. Yes Jesus loves them. He will give them every chance. But His patience will not last forever.

Elites Greed and the People's Cowardice: Two Gaping Wounds in America's Soul

 America is dying do to the elites indifference to the well being of the nation and the average citizen's disinclination to do anything about it. After all, the average Joe knows very well that something is very wrong but lacks either the knowledge or courage to bring about the needed change. So he flails in anger, making  himself look silly, allowing the elites to laugh at him and not change their behavior. So the lifeblood of America drains away, with no end in sight.
     It truly is amazing how indifferent the American elites are to the well being of America. They treat the nation of their  birth as just another company to loot, just another teardown to make room for another McMansion. Hey, the place is dying, so sell it off for the sum of its parts! If the place  dies, so what? We are citizens of the world! We can live anywhere we want! If millions of less fortunate Americans are destroyed by their greed ,cruelty, and corruption  so what? We earned it! We deserve our wealth and everyone else's too. We're just better than you!
    Nobody comments on how the US elites indifference to their  native  land  is quite unique in the world. Vladimir Putin might be a bastard, but nobody doubts he cares about Russia. The Chinese Communists  might be cruel to their people, but they care about the future greatness of China. You get the feeling that the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street or Silicon Valley would not give a damm about the demise of their fellow Americans as long as they  got their money. In euros, of course.
     It is very simple how the elites made their money. They would like to tell you that they made it through brilliant innovation on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Wrong. Most of their wealth has been simple cost cutting. What has the cost that has been cut? Labor. The 1 percent's  formula for riches? Cut wages through the forces of globalization and stuff it into their own pockets. Its as simple as that. They would like to pretend that it is through their superior intelligence and innovation. But in 2016, Silicon Valley is largely being exposed as an emperor without any clothes. Instead of the flying cars of The Jetsons, we get fancy phones and 140 characters. Steve Jobs is dead. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have nothing more to offer than hot air. There is nothing big on the horizon, Uber and Snapchat notwithstanding. The Superinnovative Cool  Cats made money the old fashioned way. Through slavery.
    What have We The People done about this? Not much. Sure they get angry. Big deal. My beagle Alfie gets angry when you keep him off the couch. But the duties of citizenship that our Creator demands of us seems to be beyond us. Maybe we lack the intelligence to realize that our oppressors are the cool cats who sit in their jeans on Casual Friday, rather than minorities or Muslim terrorists. You are thousands and thousands of times  more likely to be made homeless my someone sending your job to China rather than being attacked by terrorists.
     Two totally unrelated movies can tell us the extend of the problem. One is "Slap Shot", the hilarious Paul Newman classic about minor league hockey. The subplot in the movie is that the team is going to be disbanded because the towns steel mill is closing. "Slap Shot" was made in 1975, 41 years ago. The other movie is Alan Parker 's Mississippi  Burning"     where the Gene Hackman character tells a story about how his father killed his black neighbor's mule because "son, if you ain't better than a nigger, than what are you." The point of bringing up these two movies? One, is that the betrayal of the working class has been going on for two generations now. Second, it has been allowed to go on because the white working class would rather defend white privilege than fight for a better and fairer world.
     Yes, White privilege exists. Why else would whites pay such a cost to defend it? There is no such thing as "driving while white". No such thing as white ghettos. Whites are privileged in this country in so many ways,it is not surprising that they would go to such great lengths to defend it. There is only one problem. White elites in Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Washington don't give a damm  about  white privilege. Because destroying American white privilege is how they make their money!
     The hard pressed American white male could have responded to this challenge in several ways. One is working to improve their skills. On one hand, this has proven to be no guarantee of a good job. On the other hand, there has been much comment on how females have worked harder to improve their skills while many males have remained passive. Hard times are no excuse for doing nothing, but many whites have done just that. Even better, White American Male could have made common cause with his fellow human beings to create a just society. Didn't wanna do that either. So what did he do? Follow 40 years of  white backlash politicians. These pols would promise to defend, in secret coded words, white privilege and blame everything on black welfare queens. Indeed, make it sound like the only Americans who work hard are  white males. Everyone else is sucking off the government. Of course, these pols turned around and took the money of the white elites as they destroyed tens of millions of jobs!For forty years! Well now. White American Male has seen through their ruse! He has rejected his old Republican buddies! He now has a solution! DONALD TRUMP!!!

Good God.

    Well it looks like America's double whammy  will continue for awhile. Will America survive? Who knows?All I know  is that Jesus Christ has promised us that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His creation. Good thing too. Looks like America might not be so lucky.

Dance with your Donald, Fellow American.  I will put my hope in the Lord.

Democrats Giggle as Fascism Sweeps America.

     Wake up Demmies.

     UPDATE: I wrote this in March. Never have I been so sad to be so right.

     The GOP  is not "imploding".  Repeat. THE GOP IS NOT IMPLODING. Despite itself, it is merely expanding its base. Remember, the  problem for them was figuring out  how to  keep their  racist base appeased while expanding their appeal to others. Marco  Rubio, among others, failed  miserably at this. Well, here comes Donald Trump to save the day! The Donald  titillates  with racial raw meat while expanding from that base. How? By appealing to the voters  legitimate economic  concerns. The very same concerns that  Hillary Clinton  and the  Democrats  have spent decades ignoring.
      Trump will slam Hillary on free trade agreements. Hillary has supported  every single one of these job killing  monstrosities.  Said they would be create  jobs. Said we all benefit from  cheap Chinese crap from Wal-Mart  (where Hillary once served on its board of  directors). Nobody believes  this BS anymore. Except Washington insiders.  Well. there goes Obama, negotiating  yet another one. In secret. Hillary now says she opposes TPP. Yeah, surre.
     Trump will slam Hillary  on Wall Street. She  has taken tens of millions  in speaking fees from  them  directly. She has taken  over $140 MILLION in speaking fees directly from special interests! Did it ever occur to Bill and Hillary  to ease up on the piggishness? Well, expect the Donald to have much fun with this. Stand up to Wall Street? Yeah, sure, Hillary.
     Trump will slam Hillary on Social Security. Trump  understands that people are scared and has decided to exploit their fears by claiming he will protect Social Security. Meanwhile, it is an article  of faith among establishment Democrats  that SS must be  cut, usually  in some Grand Bargain  with the GOP. Nothing  like Useless  Democrats  pissing on the Third Rail of politics.
     Trump will slam from all sides on matters of  war. On one hand, he will  do the standard  right  wing riff of talking tough  and  "making America Great Again". On the  other hand, Hillary has supported EVERY foolish military engagement we get into that manages to be stupid, bloody, pointless. expensive. and unending. Imagine being vulnerable to being called weak and a warmonger at the same  time. A neat trick, unless you're Hillary Clinton.
      Establishment Democrats will spend the fall of 2016 waiting for Trump to collapse, Just like Establishment Republicans spent the fall of 2015 waiting for Trump to collapse. The GOP will stop  imploding and will fall in like with the Donald to save their skins. A demoralized base, having watched Bernie Sanders get mau-maued and "superdelegated" to death  shows no signs of turning  out. The black vote, having helped bury Sanders despite a sterling  civil rights  record,  might not come out  like they did not turn out in 2010 or 2014.
      I hate Donald Trump. I do not believe  his populist rhetoric. I am appalled how totally  unprepared the Democratic Party is to deal with him.

      President Donald Trump.
      Thank you Useless Democrats.
      Have another slice of brie.
                      

Real Life Star Wars. OR Hillary Clinton Lost and I Feel Fine..

      UPDATE: Well, Hillary did not get out of the way. Look what happened
 A so called Bright Side of the Force that has made peace with the Death Star is more insidious, more depraved, more evil than the Death Star itself.
     For even if the Death Star is totally in control, as long as there is a Bright Side of the Force fighting against it, no matter how tiny, no matter how beaten, there is still hope. but if the Bright side goes along with the Dark Side, becomes its junior partner, there can be no hope, because the darkness will eventually consume the light and snuff it out, leaving no hope.
     Today, the world's 65 richest people control as much wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion people. This can be described by the following absurd equation:

                                                                65=3.500,000,000

    This travesty was brought to you by worldwide economic globalization, which is really a system of global economic SLAVERY. In the old days, the slaveholder paid for the housing and food, such as it was, and gave it directly to the slaves. Now, the modern slave is given a small wage, maybe given a government subsidy, and is left to fend for herself. The slaveholders then call this 'freedom' and say that the slaves should be grateful for it. If you think this is a harsh or outrageous statement, you need to look at the math again.

                                                                65=3,500,000,000

       For Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the establishment Democratic Party, this is just a fine and dandy state of affairs.
     This state of affairs is horribly offensive to any system of morality and decency that humanity has ever devised. Judaism. Christianity. Islam. Buddhism. Ancient Greek Paganism. Secular Humanism. you name it. The current system cannot be morally defended on any level whatsoever.

                                                                65=3,500,000,000

     But  watch Hillary Clinton tie herself in knots to defend the interests of the 65 while pretending to be the friend of the 3,500,000,000.

     Why am I picking on Hillary? why am I not picking on Donald Trump or Marco Rubio? Well, it you read my previous posts, you will see that I already have. They deserve our scorn and disgust. The problem is that there will always be a Death Star, or at least someone trying to build one. There will never be a shortage of would be Darth Vaders. There will never be a shortage of stormtroopers to serve them.The bitch goddess Power will always have a hold on many, if not most souls. The issue is not the quantity of sinners. The issue is the quality of saints. The more overwhelming the darkness, the brighter a pinprick of light.

                                                                   65=3,500,000,000

         How can anyone with even a tiny scrap of humanity go along with that?

         Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are going along with it. Sorry, but the standards for Jedi Knights will always be much higher than those of stormtroopers. Sorry if that pisses Democrats off. Or scares the shit out of them.

     When faced with the Death Star that is our current situation, which threatens the very existence of humanity and the planet itself, there can be  no choice but to try to blow the whole dam   thing up. Hillary Clinton, with her "pragmatism", her "no we can't", just distracts us from what we must do. If she gets in , the status quo will continue. Except for some cosmetic changes and maybe a few social issue distractions, the 65 will get even less in number and the3,500,000,000 even more. Just like under any GOP  president. She will continue to use the United States military to enforce the global slavery system, just like under any GOP president. For as repulsive as, Trump, Rubio, Bush, or Kasich or whomever are, I am not worried about them. I am worried that the good people will lose the willingness to fight, for that is our only hope.

     Let me repeat.

       A so called Bright Side of the Force that has made peace with the Death Star is more insidious, more depraved, more evil than the Death Star itself.
     For even if the Death Star is totally in control, as long as there is a Bright Side of the Force fighting against it, no matter how tiny, no matter how beaten, there is still hope. but if the Bright side goes along with the Dark Side, becomes its junior partner, there can be no hope, because the darkness will eventually consume the light and snuff it out, leaving no hope.

      For God's sake Hillary, just get the hell out of the way.

   




  

Go Ahead and Hate Your Neighbor, Because Poverty is Now Next Door.

    It used to be in America that it was easy to hate the poor because poverty was something that happened elsewhere, usually to someone with darker skin than you. This didn't stop the politicians from whipping up fear and hatred, but at least America was prosperous enough to make sure the fear was more theoretical than real, if you lived in the right neighborhood. But now, with the deliberate destruction of the American middle class, poverty is just not for people of color anymore. Your next door neighbor, right here in Suburb Beautiful, could lose his job, his pension, and his savings, and be plunged into poverty. Has that made Americans more compassionate to the poor? Not exactly. In fact, the more people see poverty, the more people hate the poor. And you are more likely to hate people poorer than you if you are a member of the working poor.
      The Tampa Bay Times recently printed an article by political writer Alex MacGillis. He tackles the well worn subject of exactly why the working poor vote Republican supposedly against their own interests , which just happened yet again in Kentucky. Turns out that the working poor, the next to last quintile on the income ladder, resent the government aid that people in the lowest quintile get, because they feel they don't deserve it. Same song, different race. The fact that the poor now in America are much more likely now to be a neighbor or even a member of your own family has not changed white America's hatred in the least. If fact they are doubling down on it. Everyone now has a story about how Cousin Randy won't work because he's hooked on Oxy but still gets a government check. Or how the Joneses next door bought a steak with their food stamps. It doesn't matter if these stories are true or not, they spread like wildfire, much like the stories Reagan told about welfare queens. Everybody says that they don't mind people getting assistance if "they really need it" but everyone assumes that people getting assistance don't need it or don't deserve it. Its the same old story, except the hatred is directed toward your neighbor. Very sad. In a time when everyone in the  bottom 90% is getting squeezed to the limit by the elites incompetence and greed, the working poor are trying to keep their self esteem by looking down on people less fortunate then them rather than showing compassion for them. I, and my fellow lefties, are forever hoping that people will join forces with their neighbor to fight against the common enemy that is destroying us all. And of course we are forever disappointed.
      We are losing because we do not realize that the enemy is Original Sin. You might wonder how the scorned and hated poor people are reacting to their neighbor's cruelty. Well we know one thing: they are not voting. At all. It is obvious these people have been so browbeaten that they do not have the self esteem to fight for themselves. They do not believe that Jesus Christ, through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, gives hope, and most of all, DIGNITY to us all, no matter how poor we are. You do not hate your neighbor if you believe that Jesus loves them and gives then eternal life. Nor do you cave in to despair OR the scorn of a $9.00 an hour Wal-Mart clerk if you believe you are the recipient of Infinite Love. The choice is ours. We can all take solace in the Infinite Power of  Jesus Christ and make a better life for all of us. Or we can believe we are on our own, and let Evil pick us off one by one. It is obvious that too many Americans are taking the wrong path. Soon, the people lucky enough to have a job will too, get picked off.   

Are You Happy You Smeared Bernie Sanders?

  UPDATE....Once again I was right.  Reading Thomas Frank"s article In Harpers,  it is clear that the Lamestream Media's hated candidate was not Donald Trump but....Bernie Samders!! Never have I been so sad to be so right.
   It is hilarious to watch the Washington elites ad the Lamestream Media poo-poo Bernie Sanders as he gets stronger. First he was a fringe candidate who would be lucky to break out of single digits. Then it wasn't a big deal after he broke 20 percent in polls. Then we were told to disregard the huge crowds and the huge amount of cash he was raising from the grassroots. After all, we were told that crowds don't matter. Grass roots funding does not matter, because after all, the Big Boys and Democratic Party Insiders were all for Hillary. Now we are told that it doesn't matter if Bernie wins Iowa and New Hampshire! Unbelievable!  I have been a total political junkie since 1976 and never has it been said that losing Iowa and New Hampshire is not a big deal. In fact, such a result has always been described as a disaster. When Hillary was on the brink of losing both states in 2008, it was described as a quick kill for Barack Obama, until Hillary pulled out New Hampshire after some well timed blubbering. Why, is it all of a sudden, not a big deal in 2016?? We are told that its because of Hillary's strength with minority voters., which are few in Iowa and N.H. What, you don't think it will matter with minority voters after Hillary gets off to a disastrous start? You don't think that the Clinton's long record of race baiting whenever they get in trouble will not be remembered? The unions are for Hillary in Nevada!! We are told unions are dying, that they are irrelevant, except of course when they endorse Hillary Clinton.
      But the real reason is that the elites have decided that Bernie Sanders must never be taken seriously. Ever. No matter what happens. No matter what is said. If we just ignore Bernie Sanders, his ultra lefty ass will just go away. The elites will say that Hillary wins debates when the polls say that Sanders won. They will say that her performance in front of the Benghazi Committee, which she essentially played it cool while the GOP made asses of themselves, is a clincher when it will be forgotten when the primaries start.  Hillary is Inevitable! We said so!     
      Yes , Hillary is still a big favorite. But it might be a good idea if someone stopped the slide in Iowa and New Hampshire. Before people start, you know, voting.

Ronald Reagan Continues His Stranglehold on America

     Sometimes the ignorance, bigotry, and hatred in this country is so overwhelming it breaks your heart.
     Exhibit A- This morning, my wife's slightly redneck but usually decent cousin posted on Facebook actually begging ISIS to kill President Obama. Really. My hands literally shook with rage and shock. After all, I knew he was a conservative, but I really never associated such levels of hatred with him. What the hell is the matter with these people? What the hell happened to make this type of thing respectable in certain circles?
      Well, Ronald Reagan happened. And he is still with us.
      Reagan has been called the "Great Communicator." But what exactly did he communicate?  That
it is OK to indulge in your hatreds and your selfishness. Reagan made it respectable to be a racist. Reagan made it respectable to be selfish and greedy. Reagan made it respectable to be a warmonger. In short Reagan made it respectable to indulge in sin as to your public actions. We still live in Ronald Reagans dictatorship of the national soul. My entire adult life has been spent in utter disgust of the coarseness and cruelty of our national discourse. My entire adult life has been spent in the fruitless hope that this national nightmare might end. And I am always disappointed. The middle class being strangled to death? It is the result of Reagan's ideas, and they still prevail. Endless, fruitless, war? Reagan paved the way with his belligerence. After the Masters of the Universe nearly tanked Western Civilization in 2008, I thought people would finally wake up and smell the coffee. We finally elected a Democratic President without the support of the South. Finally, I thought, we have finally shrugged off the poisonous legacy of Ronald Reagan. No such luck. The hatred and ignorance is still with us, only stronger and harder than before. Fox News, Ben Carson, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Rick Scott. and many more. They are all the bastard children of Ronald Reagan. All they do is follow Reagan's ideas to their viscous and poisonous extremes. They would not exist without Ronald Reagan. Uncle Ron's superficial charm is long gone. The meanness and hatred is still with us. And millions of white conservatives proudly sprew out his hatred, pleased as punched with themselves, blissfully unaware of the shriveling of their immortal souls.
      How can this be so? One of the reasons is that liberals are blissfully unaware of Reagan's total triumph. It is often said that today society is the result of a deal between liberals and conservatives.   Liberals got the culture while letting conservatives run the economy. But as David Sirota explains in his book Back To Our Future, the liberals never got the culture either. The ideas of the Reagan Decade, the 1980's, still have a stranglehold on our soul. This is because of the reinforcements of pop culture. The so called hippies of the 60's have been totally demonized by characters such as Forrest Gump and Michael J. Fox's Alex Keaton in Family Ties. War has been glamorized by movies like First Blood, Top Gun, Red Dawn and too many others. Pop Culture has totally glamorized the myth of the Lone Hero against the Evil, Stupid Bureaucrat. Finally we accept black people only if they no longer act black. Bill Cosby's Cliff Huxtable. Oprah Winfrey. Michael Jordan was able to bleach himself in white people's eyes. LeBron James has not. Barack Obama thought he bleached himself enough to be accepted by whites. But it turned out that Reagan's America still thinks he's a nigger. So much for "hope" and "change". Reagan's America never changes. David Sirota is an expert an pop culture as only a child of the 80's is. Read his book. You will be both greatly entertained and greatly angered. Freaking Ronald Reagan never dies.
    I write this four days after the ISIS terrorist attacks on France. But I don't worry about ISIS destroying America. I'm afraid Ronald Reagan has already managed it.

The Pentagon's Shocking Record of Failure

    Now that the horror of the ISIS attacks is sinking in, the spastic little children in the GOP and the media are demanding "Do Something!!!". The fact that these people don't have the slightest idea about what to do does not stop them from screaming. All they want is to send the US Military out to kill people and blow things up. Doesn't matter what or where as long as it's Muslim. It is horribly and sadly predictable how this is all going to play out. First, wise people asking for restraint will be mocked as wimpy, unpatriotic appeasers. Then to appease these babies, the US will bomb something or invade something Islamic. This will accomplish nothing except help ISIS recruit more terrorists, kill innocent people, and finally get American soldiers killed. Oh yes, and give people like Marco Rubio a cheap bounce in the polls. When the body bags start coming home, General Marco will nowhere be found. And when the next terrorist attack happens, liberals will be blamed. Or hippies. Or Peaceniks. Or Jane Fonda. Or anyone except the assholes who demanded war. Who will be screaming, once again...do something!!!......
     Any shrink can tell you a working definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again even if it doesn't work. By that definition, the United States of America is insane. We keep asking the Pentagon to get US out of these messes. And it has been proven that the Pentagon is only good at two things 1) Blowing things up 2) Fucking up.
     Why hasn't it been reported that, since the end of World War II whenever the enemy decides not to cave in and, you know. actually fire back, the Pentagon loses the war? Korea was a tie once the Chinese got involved. Vietnam was a disaster. In this century both Iraq and Afghanistan were bloody, pointless slogs. The Marines were blown out of Beirut in the 80's when Reagan decided to Do Something about Libyan terrorism.  The only time the Pentagon wins is if the enemy is so weak it cant resist (Grenada, Panama), can be subdued by just bombing (the Balkans) , or when the enemy essentially leaves the battlefield (the first Gulf War). All the rest have been  defeats of the United States. This despite the fact that one half of the world military expenditures are borne by the United States. This despite the fact that the US has the world's only functioning blue water navy. This despite the fact that the US spends so much on national defense that nobody can tell exactly how much is being spent! I guess it would be unpatriotic to subject the Pentagon, to, you know, an audit. Finally, this despite the fact that the average American soldier nowadays is of consistently high quality. ( they are not "troops" they are soldiers). So we blame our defeats on Jane Fonda. Or that we didn't let MacArthur cross the Yalu or let John Rambo win the war in Vietnam. Or we just didn't have enough troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or they didn't give us enough time. Hey, if they would only give us 20 years, we could complete our "nation building" , whatever the hell that is. Its always the fault of someone else. Never because of the possibility that the generals, the desk jockeys, and the politicians might be incompetent. Oh no!
     Maybe I'm being too hard on the Pentagon. After all, they work for a public that has essentially abdicated the responsibilities of citizenship and national defense. The volunteer army lets us dump all the responsibility of our safety on a small strata of people who are overstressed due to the demands made on them. Many in the military did not want to follow up on Bush's harebrained scheme in Iraq. What is sadly apparent is that a combination of an ignorant public, mindless politicians, and a Pentagon so bloated that it cannot get out of its own way will only get people killed while doing little to stop the evil of ISIS.
     Before we start another war,  maybe we can demand that Saudi Arabia and other petro-dictatorships stop funding terrorists just to save their own corrupt skins. Remember when Jimmy Carter was laughed out of the White House when he called the energy crisis "the moral equivalent of war?" Well it is war when the money we pay for gas winds up in the hands of ISIS thanks to our "allies". We could cut down our dependence on foreign oil, leaving the sheiks no option but to drink it. Finally, those of us who call ourselves "Christians", followers of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. can stand in the forefront, demanding accountability from those who would get us in another pointless war.

Hillary WAS Just Good Enough to Lose With

    UPDATE: Don't you just want to strangle Hillary now?
 All that Wall Street money is now sticking to Hillary Clinton like stink on you know what. She cannot hide from it. Any pretext of economic populism is buried in it. Bernie Sanders is right. They do not give you that money out of the goodness of their hearts. They give it to you to own you. Does anyone really believe recent Hillary's shift to the left? Most people believe its just a stunt. A stunt that will be funded with Wall Street dollars. A stunt that will be repudiated when Hillary finally gets to sit in the Big Chair. Then it will be business as usual. Even if her recent shift is sincere, few will believe her. You took the money, Honey.
     I am usually one to decry the media's obsession with "gaffes". The banal horserace reporting without speaking of what the candidates are really saying can drive me mad. But, man, Hillary really laid a big one at the debate November 14. When Sanders persisted in pressuring Hillary on her millions and millions of bucks from the Vampire Squid and others, Hillary said that it doesn't matter because, well, Wall Street was close to the World Trade Center, and she was New York's senator during 911 and therefore we were all victims or something so...uh...don't worry about the money because .....well, just because. All this after the ISIS attacks in France.
     Good God.
     Doesn't the Inevitable Nominee realize that her ties to WS are just as deadly as Jeb Bust's ties to Dubya and Iraq? Didn't she know the question was coming? Why, like Jeb, does she not prepare for this question? Could the reason be that there is no answer to the question? Could it be that her closeness to Wall Street will piss away all the populist advantages that the Democrats should have in 2016? Can you imagine Donald Trump saying "Hey Hillary, why did you take the money? Why did you take MY money?"
     Isn't it about time the Democrats starting asking these questions?

Oil Dictatorships Need to Stop Funding ISIS

I helped fund ISIS today.

I didn't mean to . but I did. You see. I drove to the grocery store.

     Whether you drive a Prius or a Lincoln Navigator we help fund the atrocities of ISIS. The butchering in Paris only the latest. We drive our vehicles. We buy gas. Some of that gas comes from Saudi Arabia. Qatar. the UAE and others. The dictators, kings, sheiks, and bankers get the money. American oil companies and politicians like the Bushes make sure they get that money They use that money to fund opulent lifestyles and to oppress the masses. The average citizen becomes poor and frustrated. To stay in power, the kings buy off and fund  Islamic extremist and terrorist groups. The groups then recruit frustrated outcasts to commit terrorists acts. In short, the sheiks, bankers, kings and oil companies get rich. Innocent citizens minding their own business in the World Trade Center and Paris and too many places in between get slaughtered. So the cycle goes on and on.  Wars are started. Sabers are rattled. Fingers are pointed. Names are called. Soldiers die. Innocents die.
     The bank accounts get fatter. The terrorists get deadlier.
     The horror will never stop until the oil dictators are held accountable. Yeah, Jeb! That includes your family's  buddies in the Saudi royal family. 
  

Man's Search for Meaning in the 21st Century

    Victor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning remains a classic today. His ideas, forged in the hellish pit of Auschwitz, still stun and move us. He reminds us that no matter how bad your circumstances are, the only freedom that cannot be taken away is the right to choose your attitude. The right to choose your own way. Coming from Frankl, these words no longer seem like new age pabulum. They were forged from history's most brutal laboratory. Frankl quotes Nietzsche with approval: "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How." In the concentration camps, Frankl stated that the people who survived these most inhuman conditions were the people who believed they had something to live for. These people would never give up. When people gave up in Auschwitz, death would surely follow. As I write this, I am going through one of the most difficult circumstances of my life. Frankl's words jolted me out of my depression and stupor and got me hoping again. If he could survive Auschwitz, certainly I could survive my problems and face them with courage and bravery if I only would choose to do so. Wherever you are now, Viktor Frankl, I owe you a lot.
     America in 2016 is certainly not Auschwitz. We enjoy freedom and luxury that Frankl and his fellow inmates could only dream of. But in America we certainly have not abolished despair. Depression and suicide remain menaces. But suicide rates in America remain incredibly uneven.
Suicide rates of white males over forty years old in America are THIRTY times more than black females of the same age group. Not three times more, not thirty percent more, thirty times more! Since I am a white male approaching my 54th birthday with a melancholy temperament, this is a cause for concern.  I read in my hometown  newspaper just last Sunday, how suicide and depression rates among white working class males is going through the roof. What is going on here? Could it be that we have all been sold lies? That wealth and status and accumulating stuff is the be all and end all of our existence in America? That the tragedy of my brethren was that they believed these lies? As the fallout of America's winner-take-all society reached critical mass, could it be that the so called losers couldn't take the shame? Was the shame so unbearable that some of these men killed themselves? I think so. Because when these men found out that their financial and social standing were hopeless, life lost all meaning.  They had nothing else to fall back on. And what of the black females, the ones with the much lower suicide rates. They are certainly a much scorned group in America. They are much less wealthy then their white male brethren. But they are not killing themselves. Could the reason be that because of circumstances, they never really bought into the American dream? When hardship comes, these ladies, as a group, have something to fall back on. They have their community and are not as isolated as the white male. This goes to man's, and woman's search for meaning. For when hard times come, as they inevitably will for all of us, we must have a reason to keep going. Something to give meaning to our sufferings. This is true whether we are in Auschwitz or a wealthy suburb. The question is not how much stuff we have but whether our lives have meaning.
     So, in these hard times of mine, what gives my life meaning. It is simply the fact that Jesus Christ died on the Cross to forgive me of my sins and bring me to Eternal life. And just as importantly, bring my friends and family to eternal life also. I am the youngest child of a family of five. with the death of my father two years ago, I am the last survivor. My eldest brother died of cancer in 2009 at age 49. My second eldest brother, died in a reckless gun accident in 1992 at the age of 37. You would think that now that my wife and I have been left alone, that suffering in the other areas of our lives would have eased up. Think again. The suffering of this life grinds on and on despite the desperate cries of Scott Stark to the Almighty screaming "Ease up on me! Call the dogs off! You took my family! Isn't that enough?? But I don't give up. Because I have the hope of Heaven. The hope that I will see everyone again. That we will be reunited and all our tears will be wiped away. I offer up my sufferings in the hope that they can be used by my family in redemption. The hope of heaven gives my life on Earth meaning. I use this power to keep going on, that there is something the world needs that only I can give, even if I have wasted a lot of my 54 years.
    So let us all pray, Lord, give us your love. Your grace. For with this we are rich. We need nothing more.
     Nothing.           

Kentucky: The canery in the coal mine.

        UPDATE. The Election is over. Democrats have once again proven their uselessness.
       Well, in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky they just had an election for Governor. Once again, a wingnut lunatic, Matt Bevin, was elected over a centrist Democrat, Jack Conway. This will have real consequences for real people. The healthcare exchange that was a model for the nation will now be dismantled. Over half a million people will lose their health insurance. And thousands of Kentuckians will die. Sorry if that shocks some people. People get sick. People need health care. People cannot afford health care. People die. The logic is unbreakable.
     Why did this happen? It is because people will always vote for something over nothing. Democrats too timid to stand up for the truth? Fine, people will vote for Kim Davis-like fag bashing. Wingnut Republicans almost always beat timid, moderate Democrats. Especially those who are obviously ashamed to be Democrats. Especially Democrats who are too afraid to stand up for what they believe. Especially Democrats who do not believe in anything.
     I am sick of hearing about how the future demographics favor Democrats. For every Colorado or New Mexico they gained, they have lost Appalachia. Kentucky. Tennessee. Arkansas. West Virginia. Missouri. All states where Democrats have been competitive. All solid for the GOP. The bright people in the Democratic Party, in their lust for 270 every four years ignore off year elections. Ignore state houses. Throw up their hands and whine "Gerrymandering!" or "Citizens United!" . This is a party that does not sweat the small offices. Does not want to get its fingernails dirty. Does not want to scuff its Gucci's. Does not want to go into tough areas or make tough races. Does not want to contest all 50 states,
     It would really be funny if people weren't dying. 

The Elites Perversion of the Concept of Work.

     When I contemplate our wonderful economic system, with its built in unemployment, downsizing, low pay, long hours, tediousness, inequality, and just sometimes  downright cruelty, I am reminded of the sign that the Nazis hung up over the gates of Auschwitz, "Work Will Set You Free". This is doubly horrible, not just because of its disgusting taunting of the Jewish prisoners who would be worked to death, but also of the desiccation of something sacred. You see, God created work to set you free. Work, when we are in tune with the sacred, is indeed glorious. Work does indeed set us free. Even Sigmund Freud stated that the two human needs are love and creative work. And we human beings, deep down, love to work. After all, what is a hobby? Its the work that you do when you get away from that job that's boring the living piss out of you. So many of us hate our jobs, so much that the comparison to a Nazi death camp does not seem so outrageous. Our system for too many souls, is a perversion of something that our Creator intended to be glorious.
     Am I being too harsh? What about the abomination that is unemployment? We have become much too accepting of this grievous social sin. With our flimsy social safety net in the United States, the specter of  unemployment has become a club to terrify the masses into submission. If you lose your job, you better get one quickly, or you might lose your spouse, your family and your friends. In these Great Recession times, everyone knows someone who life has been destroyed by unemployment. People know damm well that if you lose your job you will be stigmatized as lazy. It will be treated like it was your own fault. Get off your ass and beat the pavement! There are plenty of jobs out there! It does absolutely no good to say that, no there are not plenty of jobs out there, no matter how truthful that is.. You will be stigmatized. Or there might be some jobs out there, but they don't want to hire you. Because there is something wrong with you. You are unemployed! Welcome to being a social leper, buddy! Better get a job quickly, or you will be assumed to be unemployable. You will be assumed to have lost your skills, whatever that means. You will find out very quickly about a society that loves to divide people into winners and losers, because baby, you are one of the losers. The people who are most afraid of becoming losers themselves will be the ones to heap the most misery on you. Unless of course, your loving family gets there first. I once faced a troublesome period of unemployment, and it was always my dear old dad who got in front of the line and bashed me with those clichés that make the tormenter think they are oh so wise and profound. Get a job! I don't care if you have to shovel shit! GET A FUCKING JOB! I wanted so much to say to him, hey dad, I would love to! Just show me the pile of shit and I'll shovel it! But nobody is  going to pay me to shovel shit. Nobody wants to pay me for ANYTHING! But I said nothing about his unfair criticism. Because I didn't want to make him mad. Because I needed him for help. Because I was fucking unemployed.
      At least I was spared the horror of having my wife leave me, like some of my friends. Because in the good old USA of 2015, everything is a market, even the market for spouses. Trade in that loser for a shiny new model, one that has a good job. In a world that thinks that God is dead, there is no consequence for such casual cruelty. And everyone knows it. The elites especially know it. They always make sure the threat of unemployment is always over the workers heads.  Want to unionize? Want to be paid more? Want to be treated like a decent human being? Better shut up or you're fired! And all the horror that was described above will become your life. Is it any wonder that so many people are afraid? Is it any wonder unions are dying? I have not even mentioned the productivity that is lost forever to society when talented people cannot find work.  Who cares about the damage to society that the lost productivity, despair, and the  ruining of people's lives causes? As long as the profits stay high, as long as the elites get theirs, its just fine and dandy. As long as I get mine who cares about the crushed souls?
     Another way the elites devalue work is to make us waste time on useless stuff while the very necessary work for strong families and a strong nation gets undone. Imagine a Venn diagram with two circles intersecting. One circle is will be marked "Work that is necessary for the survival of society" . The other is "work some corporation or rich guy will pay you to do" . Or you can just call the second circle "jobs". In a healthy society, the circles would intersect pretty closely. In reality, they are mostly separate, with a small intersection in the middle. The necessary work that keeps a society going is just not getting done in America. Roads and bridges are crumbling. Hospitals are understaffed. The mentally ill are not being treated. The schools are underfunded and kids are not getting educated. People are hungry. The streets teem with homeless. The elderly die neglected and lonely. On and on it goes. We can spend all night listing the very important work that is not getting done in America. Why? Because these very necessary tasks don't make profits for rich people. Is anyone else outraged about all of the good, unemployed people who are forced to sit idle and hungry while the country rots because of neglect? Either the elites don't want to pay for it at all, or usually they pay just enough to keep a half assed system going that becomes more and more useless over time. So there is the poor American worker, trapped in his cubicle, trying to sell something from China people don't need while their kids are not getting taught, their parents are rotting in a nursing home and the neighborhood is going to hell. So we are told that this is the only way to do things, and it you question it, you are a Communist or something. Well, if I was a Communist, and I really wanted to destroy America, I could hardly do worse than what we are doing now.
     But really, the worst thing the system has done is to take something holy, like work, and make us hate it. Drudgery and low pay. How many people have spent their working all their lives at a job they hated, dreaming of "retiring" at 65, only to become too sick to enjoy it, or worse, die off before you can retire. Or, some person will love their job, do it well, still be healthy, but told they have to quit at the age of 65. Why have we given up control of something so sacred, so important, and given it all to a small strata of people who don't have our interests at heart? Who would gladly enslave us if they could? It is because we are indeed already slaves, of bad ideas. That's just the way it is. Some things will never change. When we lose our sense of the sacred, we lose the power of the sacred to transform us. God put each one of us on earth with a purpose. It is our God given right to discern that purpose for ourselves. Our work is sacred. Our souls are eternal. A life is too important to waste on someone else's whim. We have allowed ourselves to be enslaved. Dear Lord, give us the strength and wisdom to reclaim our sacred work lives from those who would profane them.
      

Three Things I Learned About Life

     Lets get one thing straight from the start. I learned these three things not because I followed them, but because I didn't follow them. I learned this wisdom, such as it is, from the pit of despair, not from the pinnacle of success. I am trying to follow them now, at 53 years of age. Kinda late, I know. But, I think most would say better late than never. I think Jesus would say that. One of the reasons I think He lets us suffer is to give us the opportunity to gain wisdom and to share it with others. It is my prayer that this little blog will help some sole in despair somehow, somewhere. Ok, here goes!
    
     RULE NUMBER ONE (THE FUN RULE) Do whatever you want with your life!!! Everyone is going to like this. Follow your muse. Live your passion. Find your vocation. Do your own thing. Insert your own cliché here. Because they're all true. Don't worry about the market. Don't worry that it is hard. Go for it! Want to be an artist, be an artist. Want to be a blacksmith, be a blacksmith. Want to play center field for the Yankees, give it your best shot. Want to be a beach bum, well its a beautiful day. You only go around once in life...and its your life. Be who you want to be.
    Wow! That was fun! There's got to be a catch right? You bet your sweet bippy there is!

     RULE NUMBER TWO ( THE NASTY RULE). Try to follow Rule1 and the world will make you swallow lots and lots of shit! Shit from your parents. Shit from your spouse. Shit from your family in general. Shit from your friends. Shit from your enemies. Shit from society, which is just a fancy word for all the people who will tell you  how to live your life. Guilt will be heaped upon you. You will be made to feel selfish. Irresponsible. Because there will be two forces dishing out the shit. One is peer pressure, because in a way, high school never ends. All those people who never had the guts to follow rule No. 1 will move heaven and earth to make sure you don't either. Because they don't want you to be happy when they are miserable. Because rule 2 shit can be vicious and terrifying. We wont pay for your college if you don't do what I say. Or I'll divorce you. Never be your friend again. You don't need me to remind you of the nasty things that people can do to you. For most people, this is more than enough to keep them in line.
     In case that isn't enough, there is "the system". The system needs you to forget about your dreams so you can work to make its leaders richer. The system needs fodder to stuff its cubicles, clean their toilets, and pick their crops, among other fun things.. The system does want people living their dreams. The system wants slaves. Peer pressure works on your fear of being left behind, of being lonely. The system works on your fear of poverty. To follow our dreams, to follow rule 1, is to risk your financial security. There is a weak safety net and that is the way the system wants it. Its not just that the elites don't want to pay for it. The system wants you to be terrified of walking the tightrope of life without a net. Bottom line: live your life your way and malevolent forces will combine to harass and scare the hell out of you. So very few people do it.
     Sounds pretty gloomy, right? But wait, were not done! Time for....

     RULE NO. THREE (THE WISE RULE). No matter how much you suffer under Rule 2, It will never be as bad as the REGRETS you will suffer by NOT following rule 1!!!.
     How do I know this? Because I have suffered oceans of regret in my life. Because like most of humanity, I caved in to Rule 2. Tried to take the safe way. Let other people lead me by the nose. For example, I would have loved to major in history or political science in college. But because I felt that I had to have a "marketable" degree, I majored in.....business. Not only did I hate it, not only did it bore me to death, the stuff I "learned" had no application in real life or is totally obsolete now. It did not make me any more money. Neither that obnoxious blowhard of a marketing professor, nor I, knew that something called the "internet" was coming down the pike and that said "internet" would reduce his words to a pile of gibberish. Like almost everyone else, when I came to a problem, I had to teach myself. I always loved history and politics. Like every amateur blogger worth his salt. I believe that my stuff is much better than a lot of the idiots who get paid for it. Why are they getting paid for it?  Because they starting writing out of college. Do I have regrets about not being a writer out of college? With every keystroke on my blog. Rule 3 pain of regret is blistering and blinding. At least I learned this in my early 50's. I still have a shot. At least I am not finding this out on my deathbed like no many other poor souls. Thank you Jesus. Don't YOU wait until you are fifty years old to follow your own personal Rule One.
     This is equally true in romance. Ask that guy or girl out! I am happily married now, but it doesn't mean I don't have any regrets. When I was in high school, I had a terrible crush on a girl. I was too shy to ask her out. The regrets still haunt me to this day, even though my rational brain says things worked out for the better. Luckily when I got to law school I had some unconscious inkling of the Three Rules of life. I fell in love with one of the most desired women in our class. I thought to myself, this time I wont let her go by!  This won't be high school! So I pulled out all the romantic stops. Even lost a ton of weight to impress her. Know what? She turned me down flat. It really hurt at the time. But it doesn't hurt now! Unlike High School Girl, I barely think of her. Because I tried.  Because I gave it my best! Took a big swing for the fences and I wiffed. Big time. But there are no regrets. At least I had the guts, for once in my life, to get in the game and step up to the plate.
     One of the favorite tricks of Rule Two slaves is to say that following Rule One is selfish. Don't believe it. Do you want to help our poor, suffering world? Than stand up to all the drones who are ruining the world while their souls are slip sliding away (thank you Paul Simon).If you want to help the world, live your passion, because people who live their passion are exactly what this hurting world needs. Think about it.
     Dear people, the biggest lie people believe is that you can live a life without suffering. This is the lie that makes people give up their dreams. People believe they can take the easy path. But its a terrible trick.  Folks, in this life you are going to suffer. I wish it were otherwise. But we have the choice of how we suffer. We can suffer the pains of living our dreams. We can also suffer the pain of failure. Nobody likes to fail.  But better to fail than not to try at all. Because there is nothing more horrible than the pain of regret. So, Good People, move heaven and earth to find out what your personal Rule 1 is and live it! Bravely prepare yourself for the inevitable Rule 2 heat, as bad as it might get. Because Rule Three is the wisest and deadliest of truths. Dear Jesus, give me the strength to bear the crosses of Life. Help me avoid the pain of regret.
        

Childhood and Education Changes Not For the Better

     High Stakes Testing. Teaching to the test. Forcing children to sit there while you are teaching to the test because some idiot politician makes you teach to the test. Playdates. Your whole day totally regimented, Don't go outside because there is a child molester on every corner! Tons of homework. Soccer practice. Band practice. Karate. Ballet. Activity, Activity. Activity. You need this activity to put on your application to Harvard or Duke or Stanford, because if you don't get into an elite school your life is over. Its a tough world out there and we are just trying to protect you, sweetie. Its all for your own good! Thirteen year old Emily is cracking under the pressure? Give her a freaking Xanax because she needs to go to her SAT prep class! Can't slow down now! This is your future at stake!
      Oh, did you hear about Josh down the street? Why would he kill himself? He was only fifteen years old. Guess he couldn't take it. Probably would have been a loser anyway.
     It is amazing to me how well meaning parents have become monsters to their own children because of their own creeping terror. We live in a winner take all society, and baby, these adults know it. They know what happens when you lose. So they push their kids to the limit to make sure their kids stay above the ever more demanding machine. But by doing so, they perpetrate the machine's malevolent force. It is a shame that these parents are so bullshit with fear. If they could slow down and think through the fear, just maybe they would teach their children that they could  change the system that is making everybody so miserable.
     I grew up in the Seventies. There was a lot of things that were crazy about the Seventies. But dammit, we had fun! We would get on our bikes, not put on our helmets, and zip up and down the streets of Norridge and Harwood Heights, Illinois. (two little suburbs pressed between Chicago and O'Hare Airport). We would actually play with our friends. Unsupervised! Unstructured! Heck , if we tried to stay indoors, our patents would kick us out! Go outside! Stop being lazy. Don't get me wrong. I did not grow up in some "Leave it to Beaver existence". If you wanted drugs in Norridge you could find them. Easily. If you wanted to join a gang, you could do so. This was the Seventies, after all. The suburb I live in Florida now is a lot safer than Norridge was in the Seventies. But you know what the big difference is? My parents were a LOT less fearful than people are now. You knew your neighbors. There were 14 houses on the side of my block and I knew the names of all the families. I could write them all down now if you wanted me to. Not so now. I know very few of my neighbors. Some are so paranoid you wouldn't want to know them! I'm sure its the same for almost all who are reading this.
     My high school, Ridgewood High, was founded in 1961, the year I was born. RHS (home of the Rebels!) was born in a burst of idealism and creativity. It was even listed as one of the top ten schools in the country by a news magazine in the early 60's. It was proud of following its own unique curriculum, the Trump plan.(no not that Trump!)  RHS was born in an era when even working class suburbs could be proud of their public schools.
     By the time I got there in 1976, a lot of the bloom was off the rose. Drugs had taken their toll. But the biggest disease rotting good ol' RHS was cynicism. We were the tail end of the baby boom, mostly the youngest kids in our families, more Gen X in attitude than Boomer. Many teachers didn't like the "I don't give a shit" attitude that prevailed among us, so many of them gave up on us. One teacher even sneered at us in a lecture hall "You all are as interesting as bat shit!" It wasn't really anyone's fault. Ridgewood was a part of America and America was just beginning its fall into the Reagan-induced miasma of self centeredness.
     BUT.....I got some real benefits too. One of the features of the Trump Plan was a modular schedule. Our schedule was a 6 day recurring cycle, Day 1 through Day 6. Each day was divided up into 20 twenty minute "mods".   Every day was different. Courses were divided up in "Large Groups" (lectures), "Small Groups" (seminars where you were seated around a round table) and "labs". Best of all, some mods were reserved for "independent study time" where you could go where you wanted and study. Now like all schools, the quality of instruction varied greatly. RHS had great teachers, lousy teachers and teachers in between.  But what really saved school for me was the IS time. I was an obsessive reader and during this time I learned to teach myself. Sometimes I was so into teaching myself that my grades suffered. But in the long run that didn't matter. I wasn't going to Harvard anyway. I had the time to read and explore my love of learning. ( I also did my share of goofing off. Hey, we were kids! Something that is forgotten in 2015) This, not the instruction, was the great gift Ridgewood gave me. The gift of loving learning for learning's sake.
      This is another of the reasons I'm glad I'm not a kid today. For the very simple reason that if I attended the typical high school of 2015 I would have gone crazy. Died of boredom. Would have seen right through the cynical lunacy of high stakes testing, like I am sure kids do today. The same thing every day. Teachers terrified to try anything new. Endless drilling in math and science to the exclusion of my favorite subjects. No time for frivolous independent study! OMG we are falling behind FINLAND!! Eeeeeeeeeee! Breaking our kids on the cross of our fears.  Thank God I'm not a kid today!
       Author William Deresiewicz, in his book Excellent Sheep describes hard working elite educated kids as...excellent sheep. Great at pleasing their elders and getting good grades. Working themselves to death. Stressed out to the max. But not so good at thinking for themselves. Totally unable to apply critical thinking skills to the wreckage of their own lives; to the dark tunnels that society has mapped out for them. There is no room for concepts that don't make money. Love for learning for learning's sake? Finding your own passion? Finding Jesus Christ?? Get real. Get with the program. Its just the way the world works.  Could it be that the reason that so called "leaders'" beat critical thinking skills out of their kids is that the brutal winner-take-all society they pimp for cannot stand up to critical thinking?  Wonderful country America has become. The 99% is brutally squeezed so the elite one percent can be........miserable. Folks, if this absurdity is going to change, it is going to have to be our kids who will change it. It might be a good idea to stop scaring the shit out of them. 

Too Big To Fail- Does Hillary Pass TheTest?

    America's too big to fail banks are the largest criminal enterprises in the history of mankind, committing fraud on the scale that would make John Gotti blush. To recap what happened: The banks frantically made loans to people who they knew damm well could not pay them back. They got the ratings agencies to falsely declare these safe investments. They then sold these financial devices to unwitting investors all over the world. And when people started defaulting on their mortgages, they got robo-signers to forge signatures claiming that the banks still owed the paper. So the banks were in fact stealing houses after they sold the underlying mortgages. People paying off their mortgages had no idea if their payments were going to the proper holder of the mortgage. Many times they found out that they were paying the wrong people when they got sued for foreclosure themselves.
      Then there was AIG and their credit default swaps. This was a fancy term for selling insurance on the banks bad loans . In fact, , the whole term "credit default swap" was to hide the fact that they were really selling insurance. You see, insurance is regulated by the government. Thanks to Bill Clinton and the Republicans (and too many Democrats) in Congress, financial derivatives are not. So party on AIG! They would sell CDS's for virtual pennies, agreeing to pay dollars if the loan went bad. Since the banks were engaging in fraud, the loans were guaranteed to go bad. AIG made a fortune selling these cheap CDO's before the bubble burst. Certain assholes at AIG got their big bonuses. Until the market tanked and they were on the hook for hundreds of BILLIONS in bad loans. This was greed and stupidity on an almost cosmic scale.
     So what happened? The big banks and AIG were bailed out. The Democratic administration of Barack Obama went along with this. Were the big, crooked banks broken up? Of course not. Were they temporally taken over by the government so the books could be straightened out and the crooks purged? Of course not! Mustn't spook the marketplace! Almost nobody went to jail. Mustn't spook the market. Never mind that the victims of this epic fraud were "spooked" by the loss of their savings, homes, jobs, pensions, ect.  And guess what forks? All these organizations are still around, still Too Big To Fail, still engaging in the same crap that got the world in trouble in the first place. Another crash is inevitable if something is not done. And they will get bailed out again. Because they are still Too Big To Fail.
     Folks, this crap has to end. First of all, Glass Steagall must be reinstated. This was a depression era common sense law that said when you deposited your hard earned money in a bank, the bank could not invest that money in something stupid, like chinchilla farms and...credit default swaps.  Glass Steagall did this by stating that commercial banks should not be allowed to invest like investment banks or insurance companies. This common sense law held us in good stead for 60 years, until the Democratic administration of Hillary's Husband got in cahoots with the Gingrich led Republicans in Congress and actually repealed it! Why? Mustn't interfere with the Great God Market. Good God. Do NOT forget that a Democratic President signed the repeal of the law that would have prevented the Great Recession. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president supported the bailouts. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to break up the Too Big To Fail institutions. Do NOT forget that a Democratic president has not even tried to put these crooks in jail.
      My fellow progressives, we have to get control of the Democratic Party. Yes, I know the Republicans are batshit crazy. But we cannot let fear of the GOP let people like Hillary off the hook. It's because Democrats like the Clintons and Obama have basically accepted the conservative free market ideology that enables the Republicans to go crazy. Snarky Hillaryites smugly think we have no place to go, and so they take the banksters money and put in place 90 percent of the GOP economic agenda, Folks, this garbage has to stop.
    So, I propose a simple litmus test for Democratic candidates. You will agree to 1) Reinstate Glass Steagall. 2) Break up the big banks 3) Prosecute banksters for their crimes. 4) Regulate and tax useless transactions that do society no good. 5) No more bailouts! In short END TOO BIG TO FAIL  If you do not support this Democratic candidate, we will not support you . EVER.

Enough is Enough.
    

American Politics at the Foot of the Cross

     American politics approaching the election in 2016 has reached a low ebb. Potential voters are staying away in record numbers. The miasma of Big Money and the soul-crushing pile of negativity it will purchase will further discourage a weary nation. Why should we even try? The Big Boys will always win. But in reality, the Big Boys were defeated 2000 years ago when our Savior was nailed to a Cross. Our failure to believe this has resulted in two basic political  trains of thought, both which fail us. There is Liberalism, which is essentially Christ without the Cross. Then there is Conservatism, which is the Cross without Christ. They both fall short of meeting our crying world's needs. This world can be redeemed only with Christ on the Cross.  To many people this is either ridiculous or scandalous. They much prefer one of the two more respectable solutions.
     First, Liberalism Christ without the Cross. This reduces Jesus to just a very good man. A teacher. A man who shows us a better was to live. Be kind to your neighbor. Care for your fellow man. Liberals are certainly right when they claim that most of Jesus' ideas dovetail with their ideas. Its one of the reasons I consider myself a liberal myself. But Jesus The Really Good Man dose nothing about the sin that is crushing the world. Liberals almost always lose in the long run because we are always the do gooders. The ones that are always trying to get the voters to eat their vegetables.  So we are easy prey for those who would allow the voters to  indulge in greed, hatred, and fear. Christ without the Cross is certainly nominally attractive, but he gives us no strength to fight the more attractive enemy. So voters turn to the conservatives. Ah, the Conservatives! The Cross without Christ. 
     Yes, the Cross without Christ. The Cross of all the worlds problems on your shoulders without no God to help you. Self Reliance! Rugged Individualism! You're on your own baby! What you need help? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! What, the world's powerful are so ravenous they even took your bootstraps? Quit whining! The Cross without Christ is no Christianity at all. It is one of Evil's greatest triumphs that the majority of American "Christians" have been tricked into a Christless religion. The First Church of Ayn Rand. Its one of Evil's favorite bait and stitch. Here Mr. America, indulge in your favorite cheap sins. All you got to do is carry that huge burden. Alone.
     So, in America a Godless despair prevails with the good people of the world powerless to combat it. So what can we do? Embrace Christ on the Cross! Embrace is with all the blood and dirt and sweat. Embrace the suffering. Embrace the suffering needed to bring about a better world. Because  God Himself is suffering with us For you! And me! And for the world. Jesus death on the Cross brings eternal life to all. The eternal life should give us strength to combat the forces of Evil who are pressing an unbearable Cross on all of us. The world is being destroyed under the burden of this Christless cross and all the unholy suffering that it brings. Folks, there is no way out of the pains of this world, despite the lies of Evil that tell you  can buy yourself out of it. In order to defeat Evil, we need the help only God can bring. What we are doing now sure ain't working. Jesus promises to stand by us bearing the Cross in this world, and giving us Eternal Life in the next. Should we be so quick to disbelieve him without even seeing for ourselves whether He will keep his promises? As for me, I will cast off the Christless Cross the world has dumped on me and embrace the Suffering Servant. Who Died on the Cross. For you. And me.

Time for the Disruption of........Corporate Capitalism

     We are hearing much about how our Corporate Masters of the Universe are into Disruption. Disrupt old industries. Disrupt old ways of doing things. Uber is "disrupting" the taxi industry! Never mind that the poor taxi drivers, who are probably struggling anyway, probably need the work. Disrupt them! Brag about how disruptive your new technology is and see your stock price soar! Get on the cover of Forbes! Never mind that your company might be like Snapchat still wondering how you are going to make money. Snapchat is Disruptive! Never mind that it really does not do anything good for society. Disruption is the new buzzword! Disruption is now! Disruption is wow! If it happens to throw thousands out of work so the elitist idiots can follow the latest fad, oh well.
     Actually, Disruption is nothing new for the Godless corporate capitalists. Millions of good people got their lives "disrupted' by when the Masters of The Universe brought down the economy in 2008. Actually, God's creation is in the process of being disrupted. The seas are being drained empty of fish. Pollution has done untold disruption to nature and the people who depend on clean air and clean water. Thousands of lives are being disrupted by fracking, as The Masters Of The Universe are determined to squeeze every drop of oil out of the ground. And of course there is Global Warming. Ya think future generations might think this "disruptive"?  Think the droughts in California are disruptive? Was Superstorm Sandy disruptive? Think the people who live on island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Maldives seeing their countries disappear under the rising seas might find this just a tad disruptive? Hell, it might even be disruptive if the hipsters on South Beach  can't get to Joe's Stone Crab because its under water! A tiny strata of the population gets all the profits. The rest of us get disrupted! Don't like it? Shut up. You are just going to have to "adjust". Again. The creative destructionism  of capitalism, you know.
     Dear Jesus, I am so sick of this garbage. Its time to disrupt the disruptors.
     It is obvious that the politicians will do nothing. The great journalist Thomas Frank got Barack Obama exactly right. Obama won because the people believed his message of "Hope" and "Change". And baby, when he got elected, things needed to change. The stinking rotting edifice that was the system was so out in the open that nobody could ignore the stench anymore. The elites were totally and clearly corrupt. The media was too palsied to report the truth. The middle class was almost squeezed to death. The banks became the largest criminal enterprises in the history of mankind. It was totally clear that things had to change. The Parasite Class was sucking humanity dry. They needed to ne stopped.
     They needed to be disrupted!
     And.....Nothing.....Happened.
     Nothing changed. Nobody went to jail. Obama moved heaven and earth not to disrupt anything. Amazing. Obama needed to buy a new car. Instead he spent tons of money trying to overhaul the old one. Guess what? It runs as bad as before. It runs on the same old bullshit. First it was merger mania. Then it was the dot.com bubble. Crash. Then it was the housing bubble. Crash Again, a really big one this time. Now, the new buzzword is disruption. Their breathless hyping of this lunacy would be hilarious if it wasn't causing the suffering of billions. The elites continue to dance la de da to yet another disaster. With nothing to disrupt them.
      Dear people, we have to stop the madness. We have to band together and organize.
      This Godless corporate capitalism that has spread worldwide like the plague and made billions of souls miserable around the world has to end.
      We have to disrupt them.
      We have to stop pretending that things will get better if we just wait it out. It will not. We have to stop pretending that the movers and shakers of the world are decent people. They are not. We have to stop pretending that the gluttonous luxury of a tiny few  while the billions of the masses suffer is the natural order of things. It is not. We have to stop pretending that the elites have common sense and science on their side. They do not. All so called classical economic theory. is an attempt to put a scientific gloss on the greed and dysfunction of the world economy. It is not based on any kind of reality. It is mere propaganda. As I have stated in this blog before at length, we are the prisoner of our own bad ideas. Corporations, money, and economic theory are nothing but concepts. We have the power to change the whole stinking system if we just realize that the authority imprisoning ourselves is not legitimate and simply not real.
      Finally folks, we have an ally on our side. The same corporate media that pimps for the continuation of this system of madness is the same one that told us that God is Dead. This is NOT a   coincidence. It would have you believe that things like economics, corporations and money are real while God is just a fairy tale. A very good thing for evil. For the Jesus depicted in the Gospels was disruptive. Disruptive to the Roman oppressors and the Sadducee elites that got to run the Temple in exchange to sucking up to them. Disruptive to the Pharisee elites who tried to reduce God to a system of laws instead of a God of love. Disruptive to the Jewish masses who wanted a military Messiah to kick the Romans out. Jesus took pity of the starving and miserable masses and died on the Cross to give eternal life for all, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile. Its this hope of Eternity that should give us the strength to take on the corporatist capitalist machine. I know some of you reading this have trouble believing in the divinity of Jesus. The cheap imitation of Christianity that has infested so many American churches has disgusted many. The evil propaganda machine that apologizes for it has done horrible damage to our souls. So has the lie that it is OK for so many billions to be miserable as long as I Got Mine. So has the lie that Getting Yours will make you happy. The faith that I have that Jesus Christ has given me the strength to write this. Otherwise I would have trouble getting out of bed, so overwhelming is the world's evil. It is my prayer that you may find peace and strength in Jesus too. Or at least find strength somewhere.  Corporate Evil has had its way for far too long. First it must be disrupted. Then crushed. .