Category: God Bless America

Rooting out a Comet

This is all George Carlin as quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly (sign up and support it if you can), which is an amazing publication bringing in old and new writings on a quarterly theme, and in this case, Freedom:

“I found a very liberating position for myself as an artist. And that was I sort of gave up on the human race and gave up on the American dream, and culture, and nation, and decided that I didn’t care about the outcome. And that gave me a lot of freedom from a kind of distant platform to be sort of amused, kind of to watch the whole thing with a combination of wonder and pity, and try to put that in words…Not having an emotional stake in whether this experiment with human beings works.”

Then: “I root for the big comet, I root for the big asteroid to come and make things right…I’m rooting for that big one to come right though that hole in the ozone layer because I want to see it on CNN…Philosophers say, Why are we here? I know why I’m here. The show. Bring it on… We’ve seen a lot of comedians who seem to have a political bent in their work, and always implicit in the work is some positive outcome, that this is all going to work. If only we do this, if only we pass that bill, if only we elect him. It’s not true.”

“It’s circling-the-drain time.”

Wow. And don’t it feel just like that sometimes? I watched the most surreal thing I’ve seen in years of the Tennessee, I believe, House of Representatives, kicking three of their members out for disrupting for a moment during session (then they called recess) but continuing on arguing that they, the house, needed to deal with children being exploded into flying flesh, bone and brain, with AR-15s. These were two very young representatives and they made the point that this is their future and deserved for it to be looked at in terms of Tennessee gun laws. Instead, the republicans tossed them – threw em out. Well, at least one, when I last looked. No due process, no, like, okay, you’re going to be stripped of your committee assignments. The Tennessee legislature with a something like 70/30 republican to democrat hold, tossed three dems, two of which were young people of color, for using a bullhorn and, well, telling the truth.

How can we live in this world without feeling just like George Carlin? I’ve been watching for decades and more recently watching the Republican Party unravel into some sort of angry group of victimized, fearful and fear-mongering tribe. They did it and with pride (hubris) and a sense of goodness. What would Jesus say? That should be enough for any sitting republican. Are you doing what Jesus Christ would do?

But I can’t go so far as the brilliant comedian has. I’m still pissed watching them undermine all of our sacred laws, our constitution and everything else to soothe their fragile egos. It’s sad. It’s like some sort of movie about some kids who were dissed by the cool kids and so now are into their revenge. Not cool, republicans. Not cool at all.

Hyperbole

“There is no better place to hide than hyperbole.”

I don’t remember where I saw that written but wrote it down because I love it. How true is that! Exaggerate! Oversell! Just keep talking and you’ll never have to reveal a thing. It’s really the perfect hiding place.

Everything that’s been written about Donald Trump and we really have no idea what he thinks. We know he lies constantly and makes shit up and screams it at his base and they love it and eat it up, but none of them has any idea what Trump actually thinks either. When he talks – or shouts – he hides, he reveals nothing. Can you even imagine a mellow Charlie Rose-type interview with Donald Trump, talking about things, slowly, quietly, focused? Nope. You can’t.

Hair Mask (Hair Shirt?)

Taking a shower tonight I reached into the skyline of shampoo, conditioner and who knows what else is in there and I grabbed one that said, “Hair Mask”. Imagine that. A mask for your hair. We live in a nation where a much too large portion of the population was unwilling to wear a mask over their mouth and nose during an airborne pandemic to protect their friends and family. An airborne pandemic, by the way, that killed more than one million of us. I wonder how they’d feel about a hair mask.  

But on the positive side, all the rest of us did! We masked up and for all sorts of reasons. Some people were afraid for themselves, wanting to stay healthy, not wanting to die (go figure), but didn’t we even more often hear people talk about other people, as in, I have to make sure I have a mask and get a test before Saturday when I go visit my grandma? Stuff like that-there. It was a beautiful thing and we can be very proud of the effort we all made. We saved millions of lives by doing the right thing.  

A democracy like ours needs its people to pull together occasionally no matter what you believe. We need to make sure that we insert a little responsibility to all those rights we like to talk about. And most of us did. Warms the heart.  

Engage and Enrage

It’s the art of politics on the right side of the aisle here in the good old USA. But if you see us as one nation, under God and all of that, shouldn’t y’all be working harder to engage and assuage? Why would anyone want to pit one group of Americans against another? What are they hoping to achieve? 

And beyond just politics, we do in general very much like our groups, those with whom we share something important to us, be that an address, a job, a style of dress, a place of worship, a school, a sport, a pop star, a hobby. And we are proud of those groups and so when our group pride is somehow hurt, we rally our group against other groups, ostensibly our enemies, but almost always just a bunch of Americans who ultimately share the same beliefs about life, love, family and friends.  

So what do we do? We resort to inflating the importance of small issues, things that might look or sound bad or wrong or weird, but are ultimately no skin off our backs. And we say these things over and over to keep people thinking about them (they say that hearing something 14 times will lead a person to action). It’s called propaganda, and it works.  

Anger, distrust, unhappiness, jealousy, and ultimately violence; that is what they’re hoping to achieve.  And when you think about it, the more we’re beating up on one another down here in the trenches of life, the rich and powerful stay busy, accumulating more power, and getting richer and richer and richer.

A Little Help?

“When the alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.  The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt:  I am the Lord your God.”
Leviticus 19:33-34 and 24:22

Help Wanted

Not sure about you, but everywhere I look I see Help Wanted signs. They are in windows, on restaurant tables, billboards, huge banners draped on buildings, in urban, suburban, exurban and rural areas – everywhere – Help Wanted signs. Some of these are for better paying jobs but most are for line cooks, dishwashers, service industry, construction, fast food, hotel staff and the like. These are jobs traditionally held by new immigrants and people low on the socio-economic ladder. Businesses are desperate for workers at a time when our jobless rate is at an historic low of 3.6%.

In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are currently at least 11.3 million job openings in the United States. The actual number will be higher due to very small businesses that often go uncounted.

“The Horror at the Border”

The reports are true: There was a record number of encounters with migrants at the Southwest border of 1.6 million in 2021, just over 1 million of those involved single adults. About a quarter of those were repeat crossers, so the number of new people trying to get into the U.S. was about 1.2 million. The number of people traveling in families was 451,087, also a record.

Sixty-three percent of these people were from countries other than Mexico, most from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, another record. Some of these were the migrants we read about or saw on television who walked in caravans hundreds and even over a thousand miles to get to our border.

Republicans among us gnash their teeth, wring their hands, and bellow about the catastrophe at our border. It’s good politics as they can dumb it down, blame it on President Biden and do nothing. Of course, the real reasons these folks are coming in such huge numbers is that there are no jobs in their own countries, they are in mortal danger and/or they want their children to have a better life than they had. The very same reasons every American’s family came to our shores.

I’m sure you’ve already done the math, but here we go: Had we welcomed every single one of those one million single adults at the border and got them each one of the 11.3 million jobs, we’d have filled less than 10% and still have 10.3 million job openings, we’d not even notice the number of Help Wanted signs having gone down, and business owners would still be desperate for workers.

I’m not advocating for that, of course, as it’s all much more complicated, but in general, the average American’s idea of immigration and our borders is shockingly skewed. This is mostly due to misinformation and mostly from right wing media and politicians. They understand that instilling fear into voters, in this case, with “illegal immigrants at the borders,” is extremely effective and distracts voters from the actual issues our elected officials should be focused on – the best education, affordable healthcare, climate change and others that truly affect American individuals and families.

Humanity is the Story of Migration

All Americans are from immigrant families. No matter where you are on this planet at some point your family immigrated to where you currently live. They did not spring from the ground like tulips. Life on earth is defined by migration – constant, ever-flowing migration. Keep an open mind, listen to your heart and don’t buy into the fear-mongering. There are often solutions smack dab in the middle of problems.

The people are woke and global, sorry fatheads

Hearing about Vladimir Putin’s attempts to keep his citizens in the dark about what he was planning and now, what he is doing, in Ukraine is laughable. How is it that these angry old guys really think they can keep information away from people in the age of the Internet? Russia is a modern country, their people are logged in and connected to everyone else logged in. Yes, the state media controlled their message and was telling them one thing but just how many modern educated Russians believe their official state television? Probably about as many Americans who watch Fox News and believe that. (Fox has about 1.5 million daily viewers or about .003 percent of the American population.)

Russians get their news from many sources as do educated and curious people all around the world. They get Russian news, BBC, German news, and on and on – the new perspective is global, which many powerful men and women disdain as it sucks life out of the power to which they cling like deer ticks. Unless Putin could somehow corral the entire world of media into playing along with his lies, or build a dome across his 11 time zones, he is absolutely screwed when it comes to controlling what his people see, hear and know. And we see now how badly he has failed. Brave Russians are protesting in the streets, which to us in America might not sound so amazing, but protesting in Russia is not, shall we say, encouraged by the State. Protesters put themselves and their families in real, sometimes mortal danger.

Even North Korea, a veritable desert of outside news, can’t stop it all. Defectors have reported various ways their citizens still find a way to get western information, usually entertainment, into the country. If the Kim’s can’t do it, no one can.

Here in our own nation, fatheads around the country are banning or trying to ban books, like it’s 1952. This is the absolute dumbest (and dumbing) move the said fatheads can attempt. First, tell a young person with even a modicum of smarts and self-respect not to read a book and they will find a way to read the book. Duh. Second, ban them where? Books are everywhere. You could work to ban it in a school but another school with have it, so will the library, and so will, ahem, Amazon. And third, kids have printers. Got it, fatheads? We know that what you’re doing is merely to make others like you happy to further your political careers, but you look so dumb doing it, that it can only backfire. It seems that you also should read those books, and many more, until you get it.

Young people are woke and global (as are many old people). Your attempts to turn back the clock, jam the toothpaste back in the tube, close the barn door after the cows all left reminds me of the old guy on the 70s television show “Soap” who would snap his fingers and think that he’d become invisible when all the people around him just kind of groaned and went on with their business. You’re ridiculous. You have zero respect for the modern world and for the intelligence of young people. They don’t need you telling them what they can and cannot read. They need you to get the hell out of the way so they can build a new world that recognizes reality, not the wishes of a washed up generation who is handing those same young people a planet that we continue to fuck up on a daily basis.

This is not to mention all of the misinformation perpetrated by these same people around COVID. That led to dead Americans and lots of them. For that, if Christianity is correct, you will all land in hell. Sorry. Well, not really.

Saving Face in Ukraine

I think that Biden and his team are smart enough to understand that Vladimir Putin needs a war like he needs a hole in his head. But Putin’s saber rattling works with some of his supporters. So they will, I believe, find a way for Putin to pull back but save face. Putin needs to look tough with his people and we know that. Give him an out. Let this slowly dissolve and the attention span of the modern internet world will quickly forget.

Update February 27, boy howdy was I wrong. I honestly believed he’d never attack and yet he did. Biggest mistake of that man’s life. What a fool.

Yoho’s got a new hole

Congressman Ted Yoho, “proudly serving Florida,” is obviously one troubled man-child. You’ve probably heard the story that this old fool accosted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term Democrat from New York, also known as AOC. This young woman is quite brilliant, fiercely dedicated to her constituents, a true believer in justice and fairness, no matter how much you agree or disagree with her opinions. Not sure what Yoho brings to the table, but it appears to be not much of anything good.

Yoho, like a pimply eighth grade bully, came after Ms. Ocasio-Cortez ON THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL, and among many other things, called her a “fucking bitch.” Think about that. An old guy congressman accosted a fellow congresswoman on the steps of the capitol. If she were my daughter, Mr. Yoho would be in the hospital right now.

However, that is not the case and in fact Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself performed surgery on Yoho with one of the most well-spoken pleas, not for any additional apologies (Yoho tried that and fell squarely on his fat head with the most pathetic “apology” – or non-apology – ever given), but instead a plea that this sort of behavior needs to stop for ALL WOMEN. It’s an amazing speech and if I were Yoho I’d resign now. These guys are dinosaurs and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and all the young people who are growing up to respect one another are the meteor that will end their time here on earth.

Watch it here:

Yoho’s got a new hole.