They Didnt Die...They Just Multiply

I fondly remember October 15, 2004. Jon Stewart helped to expose the hypocrisy of the CNN show "Crossfire". You see news shows have moved closer to an intellectual Jerry Springer than that of a news program that would inform the masses. Its conflicting drama, not a political analyst show. But when Jon Stewart said "stop...you hurting America" the smoke and mirrors met a fan and a brick. I hoped then that the news shows (ok not including FOX) would improve their programming.

How wrong I was.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/07/the-five-vs-the-cycle-bob_n_1656056.html

It had to happen sometime.

On Friday, Bob Beckel, one of the hosts of Fox News' "The Five," lashed out at MSNBC's newest show, "The Cycle," accusing the rival program of ripping his show off.

The format of "The Cycle" -- four hosts sit around a table and discuss issues of the day -- is indeed similar to "The Five," though the MSNBC show has many more guests than the Fox News show does.

When the show debuted, its executive producer Steve Friedman scoffed at the idea that he was ripping anyone off.

"When 'The Five' started, did you go and ask them if they were doing 'The View'?" he said to The Huffington Post. "When 'The View' started, did you ask them if they were doing the 'Today' show?"



Now I want you to ask this very important question:

Are we truly entertaining the question of a show on a 24 hour news channel that is comparing itself to a morning talk show? Now my Jerry Springer reference isnt so far fetched. That in itself is the tragedy.

The news isnt disseminated to the masses to inform, but to entertain. Its about ratings...ratings are about money...the money comes from ads.

So what wont the so called "news (always keep the focus on the next word) media" do to keep the money coming in?

Lets examine:

Allow false references like terrorists, Al-qaeda, Muslim, gay rights, Obamacare, stealing your guns, welfare, Willie Horton, Swiftboat, 3am phone calls, and a litany of campaign ads to permeate their programming at a 35 to 65 rate of exposure to commercials to news?

Of course they will! Its all about money!

So if the media with their 24 hour news shows wish to make money guess what they cant give you...

The news!

No way can they inform you...

No way can they expose crime and injustice...

No way can they be news...

Now its pundits, lobbyists, and cynical political hacks that get on to tell you "What's Not Goin' On"!

The Five and the Cycle are just more of Crossfire with a larger casts of characters that lack character.

The next time one of you brag about how Jon Stewart "killed" Crossfire, think again.

The back and forth of political spin didn't die...It multiplied.

Today's programs on the 24 hour news channel only proves that the news...is now History...

The news died...at birth.

The Liberals Are Such Smart...LOSERS!

"If you are so damn smart why do you lose all the time!"

That is the quote that I would like to address.

 

You see on the premiere of HBO's "Newsroom" the lead character played by Jeff Daniels was asked about the "greatness" of America. Well he had two people that he sat in the middle of, one liberal and the other conservative. His retort to the liberal was the quote above. His response to the conservative was massive!

I wanted to address this earlier, but didn't have the time.

Lets look at the statement he made. He is right, liberals lose...A LOT!

Now I find it amusing and simultaneously disheartening that he didn't explain why. He made a great empirical breakdown of the fallacies of the conservatives beliefs, but to the liberal...NADA!

Now it wouldn't be right to harp on Sorkin's script writing. But lets look at the character that made the "inspiring" rant. He is a conservative. Really? Aaron Sorkin made a show about the news that wished to be the news with a conservative at the helm. Why? Could it be his way to make the character valid or credible? To whom was he trying to get validity from? Is he saying no one would ever believe that a liberal would be hard-hitting, intelligent, charismatic, and valid. We haven't had one in news?

 

Can you name one?

 

Rachel, Chris, Lawrence, or maybe Keith? Now when I say valid...look at the Daniels character. Can you see the interviews he has had being done on Comcast/MSNBC? 

They would either get pulled off the air or not one person of political credibility would ever show their face on the show.

Before I get back to the liberals always losing quote know there is a reason the liberals always seem to lose. But first lets address the issue that has me tired of ignoring..."labels".

 

I have heard the argument of labels and how so many share a disdain for them, I say they are not labels! They are the way we process our morals. The best way we describe the policies we wish to live by. That's not a label. We try to be cute and act as if we are above it all while we engage on our social media. But we are not above it. Listen and pay attention to the people online long enough and without a screen name or even a picture, you can tell their race, gender, or political affiliation. How can we tell? Because everyone says what they are in their words...in their beliefs. Sure there maybe some slight contradictions, but we are who we are. There is an insult when we start referring to them as labels. Its an insult to a person who loves the environment and wants people to have a fair shot at happiness. Lets be honest, many of us just want that...happiness. Not success, but just happiness. And we lose sight of that, we have allowed words to be co-opted to the point that success and happiness has two totally different meaning but share the same space. The American dream is now to be a lottery ticket winner, instead of a person that makes a decent living with a house and retirement. So lets forget progressive or liberal is a label and accept that it is a way of life.

Allow me this anecdotal moment...

As I was going through the Internet last night I was scanning my favorite television channel, CSPAN. I came across a 90 minute video from the Center for American Progress on making education better. Now for those that don't know, Center for American Progress is a liberal/progressive think tank. They're information is comprehensive and well said. As I was looking at their own website(yes I had NEVER been on it before) I was reminded of the presidential campaigns of Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama. Can you consider those three to be liberals? Most would say no, some would say hell no! Centrist...all of them. But lets be honest, they weren't centrist. They were...WINNERS! Now how did they become winners when Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry were losers? When these others were liberals, but lost, what made the others winners?

Could it be that cardboard could have defeated those three that lost? What were they missing?

WIFM IS THE KEY! 

 

If you want to have people wish that you were the leader they need to know whats in it for them!

You see the art of communication is key in politics. When you look at the winners, they all had a nickname.

 

Clinton...Slick Willie, Teflon Bill.

JFK...he ushered in "Camelot"

Obama...Celebrity of The United States, Rock Star!

 

I guess when you look at them all...Rock Star is a fitting nickname for all three. Because all great politicians have the ability to present WIFM to the masses. Even when they stand in front of thousands the persona they relay gives the average citizen the appearance that its THEM that is being spoken to.

 

Quick on their feet...Clinton would have never allowed Bernard Shaw to trip him up on a question. Obama would never talk about taxing people as if he knows something everyone else doesn't. Kennedy would have NEVER been "Swiftboated".

 

Look at the liberal/progressives in office today with a "Rock Star" persona...

 

I'll wait for you to find a few. Exactly! Smart? Yes! Able to convey fantastic empirical stats? Hell yes!

Make a paragraph of facts into an awesome twenty page thesis paper? Oh yeah. Rock Star?

 

No! No! No! No! No! No!

 

So look at the "Rock Stars" in your party and groom them, educate them, and put them out in front! Look at the Elizabeth Warrens and Van Jones of the party and keep them on "stage".

 

Cause the politics is about one simple thing...

 

The cynical speaks to the emotional and the emotional vote for them...

 

Time for you to take the stage...

 

Or you will always be behind the velvet rope.

The REAL Reason Hollywood Is "Liberal"

Its almost a ubiquitous meme for the Republicans to demagogue the liberals by stating the Hollywood "Elites" are on their side. Its odd how the portrayal to label doesn't fit why they get the label.

But lets look at the obvious:

Hollywood people are deviants!

Gay (Larry Craig) loving deviants!

Pedophiles (John David Roy Atchison) they are!

Sex (David Vitter) purchasers!

They cheat (Mark Sanford) on their wives!

They are just (Ted Haggard) rampant (Rush Limbaugh) drug users!

They raise (Don Haidl) their kids to be horrible people and justify it!

But lets come clean...its not about sex. It never was. Its an emotional button to inspire the weak to join in on the Hollywood bashing!

Its about money! 

Duh!

I know many are saying that Hollywood is about money! Yup!

They steal ideas...engage in cover-ups...attempt to destroy careers...and always...

PAY ATTENTION TO THE BOTTOM LINE!

That's the problem for the Republicans...

Their donors don't make money the way Hollywood does.

Hollywood needs viewership at the movies. In order for viewer to exist they need money.

In order for viewers to have money they need jobs.

The more the merrier!

Hollywood (lets use Tom Cruise) has members in SAG...yup a...

UNION!

Even an extra has a SAG card!

They also are trying to sell you on your imagination with dreams of possibilities, so that the next sci-fi doesn't remind you of Battlefield Earth... isn't Scientology grand?!

But hey Hollywood gives you something else...

An out...a way to go spend time with your family, loved ones, or just some friends to hang out with. Cant do that when you work 80 hours a week or you are so unemployed the rent is due and all you can do is just stay in the fetal position in your home and cry.

Hollywood needs happy people that want to dream that they can fly...

Thinkers that want to argue about if Michael Keaton is still the better Batman...

So the next time you are listening to the bashing of Hollywood...

Open your mind...are they greedy little SOB's that wish to take as much as they can?

Yes!

Do they want to leave you with enough to support them?

HELL YES!

Hollywood and its viewers have a symbiotic relationship...

If you are broke...they don't break sales records.

Can you say the same of Monsanto...Koch Brothers...Rupert Murdoch...Wal-Mart...

Or even...

Congress?

Movies need viewers...not slaves.

Privilege

I am not one to have the personal conflict of whether it’s a right or a privilege to be an American. I am more of the mindset that it’s a privilege to be alive. Luck, happenstance, and a universal will is the determinate of what puts us here and the path we take. For those to argue that point just ask what YOUR life would be had you were the spawn of George and Barbara Bush or the child of Donald Trump? My point is made.

I can’t say that everything is how you start out in life, but it damn sure makes a difference.

While there is the Bill Gates of the world…he is the anomaly…not the rule. The question I must ask is what is the rule of accepting the privilege of life? What accountability do we have as enjoying life? Is the universal golden rule the policy we all should adhere to?

I ask these things not to say let’s implement and run with the “do unto others” quote, but to start a conversation about what we could do as an alternative to what we have comprehensively done…screwed over those less privileged than ourselves.

At this point I would continue making points of what should be done and what could be done after pointing out all the examples of what we have done as a culture, as a society, and a human race…

I will leave it to someone else…he said it better…because he lived it.

To some it may be a long read…but it’s worth the time.

Thank you. President Tilghman. Trustees and Friends. Parents of the Class of 2012. Above all, Members of the Princeton Class of 2012. Give yourself a round of applause. The next time you look around a church and see everyone dressed in black it'll be awkward to cheer. Enjoy the moment.

Thirty years ago I sat where you sat. I must have listened to some older person share his life experience. But I don't remember a word of it. I can't even tell you who spoke. What I do remember, vividly, is graduation. I'm told you're meant to be excited, perhaps even relieved, and maybe all of you are. I wasn't. I was totally outraged. Here I’d gone and given them four of the best years of my life and this is how they thanked me for it. By kicking me out. 

At that moment I was sure of only one thing: I was of no possible economic value to the outside world. I'd majored in art history, for a start. Even then this was regarded as an act of insanity. I was almost certainly less prepared for the marketplace than most of you. Yet somehow I have wound up rich and famous. Well, sort of. I'm going to explain, briefly, how that happened. I want you to understand just how mysterious careers can be, before you go out and have one yourself.

I graduated from Princeton without ever having published a word of anything, anywhere. I didn't write for the Prince, or for anyone else. But at Princeton, studying art history, I felt the first twinge of literary ambition. It happened while working on my senior thesis. My adviser was a truly gifted professor, an archaeologist named William Childs. The thesis tried to explain how the Italian sculptor Donatello used Greek and Roman sculpture — which is actually totally beside the point, but I've always wanted to tell someone. God knows what Professor Childs actually thought of it, but he helped me to become engrossed. More than engrossed: obsessed. When I handed it in I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: to write senior theses. Or, to put it differently: to write books.

Then I went to my thesis defense. It was just a few yards from here, in McCormick Hall. I listened and waited for Professor Childs to say how well written my thesis was. He didn't. And so after about 45 minutes I finally said, "So. What did you think of the writing?"

"Put it this way" he said. "Never try to make a living at it."

And I didn't — not really. I did what everyone does who has no idea what to do with themselves: I went to graduate school. I wrote at nights, without much effect, mainly because I hadn't the first clue what I should write about. One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a giant Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the place we have all come to know and love. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in which to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the house expert on derivatives. A year and a half later Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors. 

Now I had something to write about: Salomon Brothers. Wall Street had become so unhinged that it was paying recent Princeton graduates who knew nothing about money small fortunes to pretend to be experts about money. I'd stumbled into my next senior thesis.

I called up my father. I told him I was going to quit this job that now promised me millions of dollars to write a book for an advance of 40 grand. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "You might just want to think about that," he said.

"Why?"

"Stay at Salomon Brothers 10 years, make your fortune, and then write your books," he said. 

I didn't need to think about it. I knew what intellectual passion felt like — because I'd felt it here, at Princeton — and I wanted to feel it again. I was 26 years old. Had I waited until I was 36, I would never have done it. I would have forgotten the feeling.  

The book I wrote was called "Liar’s Poker."  It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative. All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer. This was absurd. Even I could see there was another, truer narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm from which to write the story of an age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business? Of having parents who didn't disinherit me but instead sighed and said "do it if you must?" Of having had that sense of must kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton? Of having been let into Princeton in the first place?

This isn't just false humility. It's false humility with a point. My case illustrates how success is always rationalized. People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don't want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either.

I wrote a book about this, called "Moneyball." It was ostensibly about baseball but was in fact about something else. There are poor teams and rich teams in professional baseball, and they spend radically different sums of money on their players. When I wrote my book the richest team in professional baseball, the New York Yankees, was then spending about $120 million on its 25 players. The poorest team, the Oakland A's, was spending about $30 million. And yet the Oakland team was winning as many games as the Yankees — and more than all the other richer teams. 

This isn't supposed to happen. In theory, the rich teams should buy the best players and win all the time. But the Oakland team had figured something out: the rich teams didn't really understand who the best baseball players were. The players were misvalued. And the biggest single reason they were misvalued was that the experts did not pay sufficient attention to the role of luck in baseball success. Players got given credit for things they did that depended on the performance of others: pitchers got paid for winning games, hitters got paid for knocking in runners on base. Players got blamed and credited for events beyond their control. Where balls that got hit happened to land on the field, for example.

Forget baseball, forget sports. Here you had these corporate employees, paid millions of dollars a year. They were doing exactly the same job that people in their business had been doing forever.  In front of millions of people, who evaluate their every move. They had statistics attached to everything they did. And yet they were misvalued — because the wider world was blind to their luck.

This had been going on for a century. Right under all of our noses. And no one noticed — until it paid a poor team so well to notice that they could not afford not to notice. And you have to ask: if a professional athlete paid millions of dollars can be misvalued who can't be? If the supposedly pure meritocracy of professional sports can't distinguish between lucky and good, who can?

The "Moneyball" story has practical implications. If you use better data, you can find better values; there are always market inefficiencies to exploit, and so on. But it has a broader and less practical message: don't be deceived by life's outcomes. Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with  luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.

I make this point because — along with this speech — it is something that will be easy for you to forget.

I now live in Berkeley, California. A few years ago, just a few blocks from my home, a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment. They began by grabbing students, as lab rats. Then they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, per team. Then they put these teams of three into a room, and arbitrarily assigned one of the three to act as leader. Then they gave them some complicated moral problem to solve: say what should be done about academic cheating, or how to regulate drinking on campus.

Exactly 30 minutes into the problem-solving the researchers interrupted each group. They entered the room bearing a plate of cookies. Four cookies. The team consisted of three people, but there were these four cookies. Every team member obviously got one cookie, but that left a fourth cookie, just sitting there. It should have been awkward. But it wasn't. With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it. Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader's shirt.

This leader had performed no special task. He had no special virtue. He'd been chosen at random, 30 minutes earlier. His status was nothing but luck. But it still left him with the sense that the cookie should be his. 

This experiment helps to explain Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay, and I'm sure lots of other human behavior. But it also is relevant to new graduates of Princeton University. In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.

All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.

Never forget: In the nation's service. In the service of all nations.

Thank you.

And good luck.  

"Don't Eat Fortune's Cookie"

 Michael Lewis

June 3, 2012

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/87/54K53/

Men...Societal Norms...Not Making A Normal Society

Imagine for just a moment that men, creators of social and moral codes, knew in the infancy of their need and desire to control
and manipulate "conformity"; that the very rules they created would imprison themselves to a vanilla existence. An existence that at its best is a fraud, at its worse a psychosomatic roller coaster ride of deception and self-delusion.

I have always wondered what men would do under the auspices of Fran Lebowitz's quote: ”Any white gentile straight male who is not President of the United States failed.” If that quote isn't a written law of man's moral and social existence, it is one of a de facto existence.

Men have the weight of the world on their shoulders, while chasing the power to rule the very world that is crushing them. While eventually "Atlas Shrugged" man just persistently chase a goal like a hamster runs in its wheel.

Now being male isn't a horrible position in life:

Better Pay

Lilly Ledbetter exists for a reason. 77 cents for every dollar men make is one hell of a raw deal.
But that is the end results of a procedural breakdown of perceived psychological oppression.
A woman in a position of power is deemed intimidating at best; a bitch at worse. While the burden of being a women in the workforce, the man has an advantage of being labeled a go-getter, free spirit, a major player on the rise.

Better rules

Women's liberation gave credence to a voice that had not been heard or acknowledged.While permission was needed to be something other than a mother, wife, second banana, secretary, teacher, or a nurse. But for men the sky is the limit.We have the access to freedom of living in a society that proclaims "its a man's world".

Sexually freer than their counterparts

Lets just put it out there, we ARE the hunters, the predators, the caveman. 50 conquests makes us a stud. 10 partners...the woman is a slut. Chastity is the only accepted role of a woman, until the man takes her to bed, the she had better be a mix of Vanessa Del Rio and Nadia Comăneci. The archetypal woman is polar opposites of men, where her "role" is sub, his is superior.

Less expectation of emotions

The strong and silent types are praised in media like Gladiators at the Colosseum. A woman with emotions is a damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. The balance of being just the right type of emotional quotient can make a woman an emotional "Sybil".

Representation of the "Solution"

Eve destroyed paradise...never a mention that Adam knew better.
Women are a jinx for ships...
Cleopatra took down Mark Antony...
Delilah weakened Samson...

But men are the white knight, the cavalry, the savior...nice work if you can get it.

Now all those things can be construed as better, but let's be honest, the sword has a double edge:

If not successful financially, can be deemed a failure

A millionaire that has a reality show based on his fist pumping and lack of intellectual properties receives praise but men who teach our children or is a nurse in an ER at times can be labeled a "pansy."
Donald Trump is a joke, but he can use "the common folk" as a punchline.

While the rules are better, the question should be "better than what?"

This life of disappointment may suck, but at least "I'm not a woman." Cant be the King, but relish in the thought that at least you aren't the pawn. Men take solace in the traditions of being all the things that come with being the stronger sex, but need to ask stronger than what? Are they truly better in a world that the rules you agree to, you don't agree with. You cant see discrimination because you didn't, haven't, or wont reach your potential. Your dreams are superseded by rules that say you cant do this, you cant be that, or you wont get to have this.
Are you truly better than women if you aren't the best YOU can be?

Sexually can be scrutinized heavily the further they go outside of the very restrictive rules they created

Be gay expect to know you have broken a rule. Admit that a man looks good and your masculinity is in question.  Interested in sexual fetishes, something MUST be wrong with you. Don't have a fond appreciation for the size 2 model on the front cover of Vogue, you need therapy.  Just be a man's man or be told and treated like less than a man.

Emotionally can be psychologically harming

The "Alan Alda" era didn't spread out through out the country, nor did it last long. Cant be "too emotional" as if we know what that is? You can "be in touch with your emotions"...just don't let everyone in on that. Remember, its the strong and silent type, because only the strong survives.
The emotional dance is hard to understand the tempo, the beat, or even which/when partner should lead or follow.

At what point can men ask the question:
Are the rules making me a player or making me feel played?

Are you free, not in the sense of free being a slave, but a slave that cant identify the chains?
Are the dreams you have your own, or did you "fall in line"?
Can you see that what women deal with isn't an issue of being unfair, or being something you as an individual cant overcome?

The rules don't work. The traditions are antiquated and has long been obsolete. We cant be the masters of our own destiny if we have already set parameters and restrictions to our dreams.

I posted this because its been a man's world in application for far too long. This world isn't working out the way we...the men...women...wanted.
Its time to dream...act on them...be them.

Men have lost their dreams...lost their way...just to clip wings of those that know they can fly.
Oppression hasn't worked...a world of special people deserve to be special. We need to let everyone into the table so that we can eat more...more insight...more information...more stability...more security...

More us being us...not us vs. them...

THERE AREN'T ANY THEM...

WE ALL BLEED...

WE ALL BREATHE...

WE ALL NEED TO FLY...

ONLY THEN CAN WE ALL DREAM...

Andrew Breitbart...

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and journalist, died suddenly on Thursday morning.
I will be honest, I was at work and my blackberry chimed and when I saw that Andrew Breitbart had died, and I was shocked. I screamed no, no, no! He was so young, my age! I was just stymied. 43 is just too young to die.

Now, after the shock I was thinking a man didn’t take care of himself in regards to health is just a normal story.

Of course many of my friends on the left are waiting for me to say something disparaging about his actions. Well, I'm not certain that what I am about to say will meet your standards.

Breitbart did what he did because he was paid.

I'm not certain who paid him; don’t have the names of the powers that be. I am certain that his position, actions, and alliance with the right was paid for. Does that make him a bad person? I would love for my answer to be no. I have very selfish reasons for wanting to say no. It would absolve me of my actions when money was a factor. The answer is a resounding YES!

He released a video to harm a woman that had not done harm just so that he could make his bones in a political party that pays when you can take down someone or anyone that harms their brand. He was the hit man. Does it matter that he claims that he didn’t doctor the video? Of course it does! He forgot the most universal and important rule of life.
“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”

But let’s be honest, I could write a ten page thesis on the deplorable acts that he did. I would be remiss if I made the point about him and not what the inspiration is…
Matthew 19:24 (Whole Chapter)
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
For the love of money, Breitbart is not alone. He is but a small example, one miniscule anecdote pertaining to what so many of us have become just to make a check. We have become like crabs in a barrel in order to make a check, to keep a check, and to keep others from making a better check.

Non-union workers complicit in destroying unions in order to stop the guy that makes $12,000 a year more than you as if you can get that money transferred to your check. What you kill for the powers that be becomes property of the powers that be.

Americans blaming immigrants for the falling wages, as if an immigrant being deported will be your gain… What you kill for the powers that be becomes property of the powers that be.
A drug dealer in a poor neighborhood that excuses his poison peddling by thinking that if he didn’t someone would.


A man acting as if a woman’s reproductive rights are your business…all for the love of a false status those men never had. Only rich men matter.

Denying gay marriage because it would hurt a straight marriage foundation built on a 50 percent divorce rate and a religious perspective that is unconstitutional and against a God that many “Christians” wouldn’t recognize if they met God.

You are being complicit in race baiting, oppression, and division just because of a fear that never existed. All the while you are watching the powers that be make you into the very “slaves” that you now have created a 99% that is hard for most minorities to be a part of.

When you are walking the path of everyman for himself instead of I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper.

When you believe health care is not a right.

You can lie on a friend to gain an upper hand.

We have allowed democracy’s value to be destroyed by political cynicism.

What am I saying…money matters far too much. Not so much that I am saying that we get rid of money, we need to lose the love of it.

I hope that Breitbart’s life and death is a wakeup call to us all.

We can be better, we must do better.

In closing, for Breitbart’s friends and family I am so sorry for your loss.

Here is the part my friends on the left were waiting for…

Mr. Breitbart, you were not evil, you were mean and weak.
You didn’t make a deal with the devil, you chose right now instead of doing what’s right.
So if there is a hell…they have processed your paperwork.
My people on the left, I urge you not to celebrate too quickly…


Because, when he was faced with the love of money, he showed hatred for his fellow man.

Can you say you acted differently under the same circumstances?
Psalms 31:18, "Let the lying lips be put to silence;"

Psalms 101:7, "He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight."

Proverbs 19:22, "The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar."

Find Yourself A Connection

I watched the last Star Trek movie recently and there was a scene that touched a nerve.
Spock asked his father why did he marry his mother, a human. In such a matter of fact retort: "Because I loved her". Wow powerful! A Vulcan that is supposed to be lacking emotion placed such a definitively emotional statement out there as if there wasn't any doubt.
I know why I am the way I am now. I truly understand why I felt such a connection to Spock's father in the last Star Trek. He wasn't unemotional like most people have believed a Vulcan is. He was the perfect blend of logic and emotion, that's how I am. But Spock wasn't that way, he thought what would make him better or best...would to be without emotion as if he could be whole by suppressing emotion with logic.
It wasn't until he faced his own test,(See Star Trek 2: Wrath Of Khan) the no win situation did he achieve true awareness of being whole. Then he understood what it took to be himself without conflict.
Spock had such a narrow view of his Vulcan heritage. He truly believed that they were just linear and logical beings, absent of emotion. He was so wrong. It was apart of their world. They were evolved. Look at how they were in their hall. They were having a communal experience.
It wasn't that they were lacking of emotion...they were in control of them...they connected to them, which allowed empathy and compassion.
Which allowed a higher purpose which allows a higher level of thought.
They had mastered the art of prioritizing.
We live to see the big picture where they saw all pictures and knew which ones mattered first.
Its like the state of meditation, evolved into a state of connection with action that allows the mind freedom to think openly and soundly.
Where we fail is the connection and all that goes into it. The first is truly location, location, location.
The mind can only absorb 150 people at one time. After that the people can't connect.
Its a level of conscious connection. The mind is programmed to be aware of just so many people.
Yet we are separated by two land systems, urban or rural, by too many people around or too few. Its almost like the goal is to have us disconnected.
That's why movements fail. Too much at once. We get overwhelmed. We see being overwhelmed as depression now. As if they are one and the same. Overwhelmed just means we need to slow down. Depression is when we have reached the extreme of slowing down.
At some point our responses to life must have consequences. We must change and adapt to survive.
We need to connect just to maintain our existence.
I wish you connection.

Reruns, Repeats, and Groundhog's Day Pt. 1

I get it…a lot of my writings have a theme. Many speak to inequities of economical social existence. But dig deeper, seek an honest critical analysis of our existence. It’s not hard to see the past, present, and if we don’t change future of “the same shit, different day”. While I keep an open and pragmatic view of the future, based on what I have seen and read it’s not hard to become pessimistic.

That’s the rub isn’t it? Many things are wrong because it has become so hard not to just throw up your hands in disgust. Why try? The effort is rarely ever appreciated or even acknowledged.

But, I keep on sending out the message…something is wrong and we had better come together and fix it.

I say that for one reason…ITS NOT THAT HARD TO DO!

I know it won’t be easy, nor will we be able to put our problems in a microwave…DING…instant solution…welcome to utopia. That’s not the point I am trying to make. The difficulties we face are not as hard as we have made them. The obstacles are simple if we truly want to overcome them.

We don’t talk to each other; we may not because we know many don’t listen. We start with talking points and end with frustration, all the while contributing to the fear that we hear from the voices that benefit from our frustration. I never thought in my life I would ever see in the real world a 1+1=2 debate scenario. That was until I started reading more about history. That has been the debate all along. We are arguing about less taxes or more taxes as if either has anything to do with economics. It’s the debate of effective taxes or ineffective taxes. It’s the debate of small government or big government, as if either has been effective.

And the biggest issue is that we ALWAYS wish to place blame. The real issue is that not one leader (politician) ever thinks it’s his dumb idea that caused the problem. Banks bailed out, regulation falling to the wayside, politicians indulging in insider trading, or wars that profit multinational companies only is ok with you? I guarantee that it’s ok with those that get billions of dollars to tell you how much better you are off with picking them over the other guy that voting record and actions are mirror images.

But I'm repeating myself? Isn’t the fact that Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner are indulging in insider trading a good reason to repeat myself? Isn’t the reason that Bush and Obama have similar military tactics a good reason to repeat myself? Isn’t the fact that those on the left and the right think that their guy is going to be “the one” when they just end up being “more of the same” reason enough to repeat myself.

Ok, let’s ask simple questions…Jefferson hated banks, but Washington made him Secretary of State…Hamilton who LOVED banks became Secretary of the Treasury.

Bush, Clinton, and Bush the second had Alan Greenspan that clearly stated as the head of the fed his economic policies were “short-sighted”. But Greenspan never said what he saw…guess he was so short sighted that he couldn’t see what went wrong…so it can happen again with Bernanke and Geithner. From the first president to the current one the Secretary of Treasury is still on the side and in the pockets of the banks. Not a lot of “change” there, not a lot of “hope” of it ever changing.

So much for out with the old and in with the new.

While we bicker about things that have no significant impact on our lives money is leaving our lives and the government is asking you to come up with blame without ever telling you the truth about what happened.

How can you do that?

Sounds like I'm not repeating…it seems that my commentary is asking why are we repeating the same shit that didn’t work before.

I am so tired of socio-economic "Ground Hog's Day"...
There hasn't been joy in repetition...

Why I Write

It’s odd that I never gave it much thought. I remember when I was in the second grade, I gained a love of writing poetry. It gave me so much of a release. I felt free when I wrote, just the ability to get my thoughts out. I even remember one day writing something and not wanting it to rhyme. I just wanted reason. I even changed part of my pseudonym(yes...in the second grade I created a pseudonym) to fit what I had become, Free.

As I got older the writing bug never lost me. If anything it became more about finding out what I wanted out of life...connection.

The search led me to understand not only my emotions and feelings, but understanding those around me. My empathy gained with every passing year. I saw and felt the emotions of those around me. But as with all good things an end came. I was just far too overloaded with work, relationships, and just life in general. The muse was gone...

Then, I discovered a quiet place in my spirit. I learned to meditate and block out the noise and the voices in my head. A calm unlike anything I had ever known was upon me. Even though the journey was hard, I found an appreciation for it. The losses, the gains, and even the moments of stagnation no longer gave me an ebb and flow that caused extremes reactions. I finally had my center.
I had reached what a friend of mine called...flow.

But one day in the late nineties I wrote something that was on my mind for some time. I wrote what I saw in the world, not my world, but the world in its full capacity. I saw issues that even when studying history had occurred to me that nothing since this country’s inception has changed.It troubled me so that we as a species couldn’t overcome ourselves. Even in our greatest moments, we couldn't all come together just to set things right.

I wrote down suggestions or should I say solutions that I thought would help. It’s funny that now, over a decade later, I see more problems and more solutions. But one thing has held firm. We can’t fix this problem until we say it’s a problem and agree to work together.

In my writing I shied away from being direct, spoke with more of analogies and less direct. Then someone just pissed me off to no end, so I threw a punch. It felt so good!

Then I decided that my writing should have an honest approach and just putting what I saw out there in to the ether. The problems became easier to point out, but the solutions became so damn complex that I just stop talking in order to try to learn more. It’s a disappointing thing to listen to some of those that you admire or respected and hear talking points, ego, and self-aggrandizing. But it was so fulfilling to find others that were so knowledgeable, humble, and perceptive to take the place of those disappointments.

Yet the problems still exists. We can’t overcome ourselves. We don’t listen, we don’t care, we prefer to marginalize and dismiss a drive for excellence by saying no one is perfect. A sports team that wins a championship doesn’t have to be undefeated to be a champion, but we refuse the ring, by allowing the cheaters to destroy the game.

But, I just keep playing the game. I need to keep playing. There isn’t another game in town.

Life is all we have and on the day that the shiny new toys, the elusive moments of power over the weak, the need to be right even when everyone knows you are wrong, we might have a shot at living.

In turn I write for but one reason…that’s one of my ways to get into the game and hopefully come out with a group of friends on the same team…while we may lose from time to time…we can be champions. We can all be a part of the living. Not compartmentalized, cubicle assigned, labeled zombies…but living, loving, caring, and sharing individuals that just want to be…alive.

WHAT MORE IS THERE?

It's About Choice

I truly thought against posting this here...but it actually belongs here.

Let’s be honest...

As our two political parties sit on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, have either side done what it claims is in the best interest of the country? Has it?

Or is it doing exactly what it wants?

Have you ever sat down and critically examined your party? Try putting your pom-poms down and think of the things that you and your party believes in and ask are you truly a Democrat or a Republican? Or worse, is your party truly what they claim to be?

As the Democrats' and their votes went absent in the last 2010 election was it because their agenda was absent of that of the politicians in office? Isn't the cry for a primary candidate a resounding rejection to what occurred in the last two and a half years?

Or maybe it’s the Clinton years that truly disenfranchised the electorate with the passing of NAFTA? Remember the Ross Perot quote during the election that appears to be prophetic:

"NAFTA will cause a giant sucking sound as jobs go south"

I wonder do the unemployed workers on the left or right hear that sound anymore. Why worry about protecting the border from illegals coming in when in another twenty years they won’t come here at all. You didn't really think that freedom is the motivation for many foreigners coming here do you? It’s the economy, stupid.

But hey the right will defend that position, its globalization Saynt, get with the program. Actually its unfair trade, coupled with protectionist laws from many countries that are involved in the "free trade". Each and every country has either by culture (it is expected to protect the country's economy) or by laws have protectionist parameters to sustain a healthy economic structure...except the quasi-globalist American policies. But I can’t go to Canada and get prescription drugs. Of course the only reason for that is profit is over people. As to many of the "conservative" electorate claims that point of view is socialism, the odd dichotomy of crying about illegals stealing good jobs that Americans could do screams hypocrisy.

Then of course there is the educational system that either the right wants to privatize or the left wants to keep throwing money at without cleaning up the mess that has been made by keeping the focus on salaries and not the fact that every mayor and governor cuts the budget and looks to the teachers to "breech" an agreement that has been made years in advance. I wonder if I could breech an agreement with Bank of America and get away with it? One thing no one will ever admit about why the educational system is failing our students is because there is not a focus on education but one of money. While each side blames each other, both have presented failure after failure with their policies.

An economic policy on both sides belies the real problem. Before you can ever get to the policies the process of how our representatives are elected and campaign on a daily basis must be addressed. Who do you think your mayor, congressmen, senators, and president listens to? The 160 million that may or may not vote or the millions of dollars that sits in their political campaign fund? The American people may have a problem with what the Supreme Court decided, but the acceptance of what was already true only came to fruition because of the simple fact that the rich and powerful hold no allegiance to either side, serve no country, have no citizenship of any country, and their money is a tool to do one thing...keep taking the voice and democracy from everyone else.

Now the left has…Keynesian economics where they want to spend your money…a lot of your money. But has the money been spent properly?

Then there is the right…an Austrian school of economics where they want to steal your money…legally...

NEWSFLASH! Deregulation is the reason many Americans lost homes pensions, savings accounts, and 401k.

Instead of trying to prove me wrong…ask Brooksley Born.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502108.html?sid=ST2009052502127

Or ask Alan Greenspan.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec08/crisishearing_10-23.html

While their way of explaining it may differ, the point is still one big outstanding word…

FLAWED! Thank god Greenspan wasn’t in charge of the murder laws.

Now in America’s history there has been one thing both sides have in common…MILITARY!

They have a love for war! Who has it been good for?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_military_spending_30.html

964 billion dollars of our budget, where does it go? Surely, can’t be the soldiers. Some of them barely make a wage that keeps their families at home from becoming homeless, poverty stricken victims. Since we can find rats in Walter Reed, the money isn’t going to health care for the wounded.

So it must be going to somewhere else…

Halliburton, a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000, is living high on the hog now. Wonder how that happened? Bechtel did one hell of a magic trick of making billions of our taxpayer money disappear. I wonder how well some of the politician did in their political funds from these companies? I do remember Nancy Pelosi getting caught attending a defense company’s party and being asked how much did she get from them…loved her (spin) answer.

But it’s all about choice…picking the left that promises to improve education, health care, and the middle class. Its electorate got mixed messages, a failing educational system, a health care plan that will still pale in comparison to the other OCED countries that are ahead of us, and a middle class that is shrinking so fast that they haven’t realized that they are no longer middle class.

Pick the right…who the fuck would…they promise freedom, less taxation, and a strong defense. Its electorate has the patriot act, a tax code that bleeds them dry, and 9/11.

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."- Ronald Reagan

Will someone please tell that man…he was in office when the debt was tripled, from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. I guess he knew what he was talking about. Only George Lucas made money off of Star Wars.

It would seem that the choices are only for those that pay millions and millions of campaign money to take billions and billions of America’s dollars.

Maybe it’s time to stop choosing the lesser of the two evils, especially when they choose to ignore you and do exactly what they get paid to do.

Someone Needs To Ask...

Why does the left seem so lost?


Why does the left always appear to be in a constant flux?


Why cant the left get shit done?


Here is my answer...


You don't lack a message, you lack members and representatives that agree with it!


Yup I said it, someone needed to say this. The "tent" of the left has always earned the description of "big and open", has anyone ever looked at the members and ask why be under a tent that is big and open if you are the owner of a small and narrow scope?
I have looked at the left and at times I just want to get up and shout to the heavens, but I always stop short of trying to do something that will gain me nothing other than an emotional release.


Someone blasted the left today in a group with a McCarthy like question. I thought that their approach was wrong and divisive and I still do, but then I realized that's the issue. The issues that matter never do matter and as long as there are just two political parties the issues that don't matter will be wedge issues that makes the left either show their true colors by withdrawing their support or walk away from the tent that they never stood under.


When you have members that can walk away to become a "Reagan Democrat", they are not a progressive. If you have members that don't want the New Deal to continue, they are not a progressive. If you have members that claim they are for civil rights but don't want to EVER discuss or see a nuance of racism, they are not a progressive. If you have black members that still have intense hatred of gay people and gay rights, they are not a progressive. If you have members that can use anecdotal "shit smearing" stories about the Latino community while there is a discussion about them losing rights as Americans, they are not a progressive. If you have members that believe in a strong middle class, but think unions hurt the middle class, they are not a progressive. If you have members that wanted Obama over Hillary because they aren't sure if a woman can lead, they are not a progressive. When you have members that say they are pro-business when they have never owned a damn business, they are not a progressive. When you have a member that is broke and jobless claiming they are for pro-global capitalism, they are not a progressive.

Shouldn't the issues be simply this...


Every human has a right, yes a damn right to an education, a job with a living wage, a place to call home, a neighborhood that you wont be afraid to walk the streets, civil rights to every man, every woman, every race, every religion, every sexual orientation, every American, a retirement without fear, health care that they can afford, a trust worthy media, politics that serve and represent you.


As long as you continue to accept anyone with a (D) at the end of their name while robbing you of your rights, what will be under your tent is a circus of wedge issues.
In the end, there are thieves in the temple of your fundamental beliefs, platform, and goals. As long as you constantly say hey we have a big tent, but many don't even endorse the politics under the tent, all you have is a bunch of clowns representing themselves and I just laugh at the audience that continues to buy the tickets for the members that performs the show from under a red tent.