Does anyone understand WTF is going on with this trumped up controversy? I watch the news, and I thought the whole thing died down after the election, when the false indignity of the Republicans was used to hopefully, maybe, possibly push Romney over the edge and into the Oval Office. It didn’t work. So it should have dimmed, even died, because there was no “there, there” as Obama has pointed out.
Yes. While that may be a delicious thought to many, it’s pointless.
We all know now that Cheney was the puppet master running the government behind the mask of President-in-name-only, George W. Bush, and was primarily responsible for the Iraq War, that boondoggle of military aggression that is the partial reason why the economy is in such a funk these last few years. He was the lead salesman for the idea that we should attack Iraq preemptively because he clearly had Weapons of Mass Destruction. If you haven’t seen Rachel Maddow’s documentary, Hubris, you owe it to yourself to watch it. It’s only an hour of your time. Over 4000 American soldiers (not to mention those from other countries) died as a result. Over 30,000 wounded, many of them with life altering injuries. Probably over 100,000 Iraqis killed, with millions wounded or displaced from their homes. All because of Cheney’s lie.
I have a couple of thoughts, by no means exclusive or comprehensive.
1. We definitely need a dialogue on how best to handle mental illness. There is such a societal stigma attached to it, and then we seem to only want to touch it with kid gloves, by making light of it, or joking (have you ever called a psychiatrist a “shrink”?). We are far more educated about the workings of the human brain than we were even 50 years ago, but we are light years away from understanding it completely. We have no problem running off to a doctor for the slightest physical ailment, yet despite the fact that the brain is far more complicated than all the other organs in the body combined, we hesitate to do something when things “aren’t right”. Often mental illness is left to the parents, or families, and society simply ignores it. We need to change our attitudes about it. In the process, we’ll not only have a better understanding of what makes the Adam Lanza’s of the world tick, but we’ll make great strides in dealing with other societal ills, such as homelessness, suicide, drug addiction, etc.
I guess everyone is well aware of the Arab Spring that has swept across the Middle East and North Africa, with the toppling of regimes in countries like Libya and Egypt. It seems to bear out the idea that people everywhere are more or less the same, regardless of their ethnic, cultural or religious differences, in the areas of political and personal freedom. They will put up with a crap-load of oppression and lack of freedom up to a point, but when that point is reached, they’ll snap, rise up and get rid of their oppressors. Usually, this happens in conjunction with an economic downturn. So it’s no surprise to see this with a world economy on the fritz, and it also explains American movements like the Tea Party and the Occupy movement. When people are able to exist with enough of the necessities of life, they are…well, maybe not happy, but content enough with their lives to let sleeping dogs lie. But when every day is a dog-eat-dog form of existence, the rulers better watch out. But enough with the canine cliches.
Some of you may remember the TV prime time soap drama, Dallas. JR Ewing and his family were Texas oil millionaires with dysfunctional relations rarely seen in real life. One of the plot lines for a whole season occurred after one of the actors (Patrick Duffy, who played Bobby Ewing) left the show, and was not part of the TV family. At the end of the season, he must have missed his paycheck, and asked to be brought back, so the next season began with Bobby’s wife waking from a dream (and he in the shower) with this dream being the entire past season without him. All the viewers smacked their foreheads and thought “WTF?”, but then the show continued with him for a number of seasons, so it apparently didn’t affect the false reality created by the show.
Now consider the following:
This recent book by one of my favorite news commentators is subtitled The Unmooring of American Military Power. With the title and subtitle, you can get a good idea of what the thesis of the book is. Think of the Constitution as the dock, with the US Ship of State tied up securely to it. The lines tying the ship to the dock are the laws of the United States, the executive, legislative and judicial branches that create, administer and enforce those laws, and the people that work in those branches of government. Now, consider that two, sometimes all three, branches, or lines, have become frayed and worn, even purposely cut, to the point that they stretch and occasionally snap, leaving the ship to drift away from the dock, completely unmoored to land, subject to the vagaries of currents. And we have forgotten why we tied the ship to the dock in the first place.
…but does this story remind you of a bad movie plot?
The American authorities have arrested four Georgia men accused of plotting to buy explosives and produce a deadly biological toxin to attack US citizens and government officials.
OK, that sounds pretty serious, but it’s the characters that make this sound like something out of Hollywood.
Not very often, and most of it is spam, but occasionally I get email that requires some response. Here is one I felt compelled to respond to.
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Time to crack down, folks. Be sure to vote ….. all you Democrats can ignore this as I’m sure you will.
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Not to mention a hypocrite.
Credit - http://thismodernworld.com/
1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Barack Obama
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SPANISH INQUISITOR 