Wednesday, June 23, 2004

The Republican Party, Highjacked

I've been a Democrat all my life. Not necessarily by affiliation; more by conviction.

Political affiliation is relative, unless you belong (sold your soul) to a party. This is the issue I want to discuss; Democrats are progressive minded people that don't need an entity to tell them how to vote. We can make up our own mind how to vote, or educate other people about the realities of our times. Often the ranks of people who vote Democratic swells depending on the issues facing the country and the reaction of the political leadership at the helm. That makes this party a skeleton organization ready to lose or gain affiliates.

My belief is always that this greatest democracy on earth is possible because of the two party system conceived before our time. The forefathers have seen all the pitfalls threatening to undo a democratic system, so they set some rules, checks and balances that move this country ahead without endangering it's own device.

I stood silent as political parties changed at the helm of the country; Democrat, Republican, Democrat and Republican again, each one trying to correct the perils of the other; when the Democrats moved the wealth too much to the left paralyzing the country by social issues, the people made their point of electing next a Republican government that will shift the wealth to the right, slowing down the socialistic tendencies of the government. When the Republicans in power emptied the treasury giving it away to their cronies, people would vote them out of the office and restore social fairness. This system worked for over two hundred years without pitting brother against brother,

This is the first time I am being vocal in my consternation of what's going on.

What is happening is beyond the comprehension of most decent citizens of this country. I always respected a political party that bases it's policies on a just philosophy. It was time to go back and check the Republican philosophy. It's been a time since I last checked on it. My memory was playing tricks, or perhaps the events du jour were just too weird.

There are no fundamental differences between the two philosophies; both are born out of a democratic system and intimately tied to the precepts of capitalism. At the base stands capitalism as a natural evolution of society based on individuals desire to be free in their decision to work and pursue happiness.

Here is the Republican philosophy:

I believe the strength of our nation lies with the individual and that each person's dignity, freedom, ability and responsibility must be honored.

I believe in equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, sex, age or disability.

I believe free enterprise and encouraging individual initiative have brought this nation opportunity, economic growth and prosperity.

I believe government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.

I believe the proper role of government is to provide for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations and that the best government is that which which governs least.

I believe the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people.

I believe Americans must retain the principles that have made us strong while developing new and innovative ideas to meet the challenges of changing times.

I believe Americans value and should preserve our national strength and pride while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.

Finally, I believe the Republican Party is the best vehicle for translating these ideals into positive and successful principles of government.


You would think, that they're not far from what you and I stand for and the differences used to be only the methods to achieve these goals.

What is happening now is that the Republican Party has been infiltrated by a new breed of right-wing neo-conservative groups together with wealthy corporate executives and extreme-right religious organizations. They highjacked the Republican Party to promulgate their agenda of squandering the national wealth, stealing the treasury and awarding government contracts without bidding, to their cronies and grab as much as they can before their time runs out.

For any fascist government the best tool is the war used to distract attention from all these secret deals by which they reward the "believers", the cronies of a new class of elite- the "have mores". The war also helps them to fool the masses by arousing a false patriotism, and dispatch them to intimidate others and slowly take over the country by discouraging voter participation in elections and even rig elections.

I refuse to believe that good Republicans stand for what's happening to this country. But even the good Republicans are manipulated within their own party to support the leader no matter what and discourage them from dissent.

The unraveling has started and will go downhill like an avalanche and soon those good Republicans will stand up to the assailants of their party and claim that their love for this country is stronger than loyalty to a political organization. And when that happens it will destroy it's constituency and splinter into smaller political groups.

Friday, June 18, 2004

Fascist "Patriotism"

The definition of patriotism is the love for or devotion to one's country. The notion of country is very vague and ambiguous arousing several questions; is it the land, is it the people, is it our forefathers or perhaps the Indians?! There is no reference whatsoever to the administrators of one's country. What if your country went through turmoil in time and had all different administrators allotting different philosophies? One's love for his/her country is the love of the land and it's human community that may or may not include your forefathers.

I used the quote signs in the title because this kind of patriotism is divisive, hateful and perjurious by definition and makes most people uneasy, intimidated and fearful. This kind of patriotism takes away the most basic freedoms enjoyed by free societies. This is the patriotism that singles out your children in school, if they wear inappropriate tee-shirt (with a peace sign) or your house in a suburban neighborhood (if the flag is not flying for the war), you would lose your job if the corporation is supporting the ruling government and you voice opposition, get evicted from your apartment if you actively and revealingly seek freedom and democracy because your landlord is a contributor to the governing party; be thoroughly searched if your skin is a dubious color at airport security, get beat up for publicizing your dissent to government policy , get deprived of truth in news broadcasting and be labeled as "liberal baby-killer" "traitor" "un-American" "unpatriotic" every time you voice opposition or criticism of your government.

The enforcers of this patriotism successfully use the war to propagate their agenda. The "troops" are the "sacred cow" of their argument to impose unpopular issues on the people. Any voiced opposition or criticism of your government is "against" the troops; it is oriented toward simple minded people (the enforcers of so called "patriotism") the uninformed that are aroused by slogans without discernment. These are the ruling party's homeland troops. You see them all over, at work, at the local supermarket, on television, in bars voicing their cowardly opinions to "nuke" anybody and everybody that disagrees with them. All in the name of God, freedom and democracy.

This type of patriotism was born in Germany in the 1930's. It was initiated by Adolf Hitler. Hitler was not German, he was Austrian from Vienna. A veteran of World War I, devastated and humiliated by the defeat of German-Austro-Hungarian alliance and the shame of defeat was too much for Hitler to handle. He refers to this anguish and pain of defeat in his book "Mein Kampf". His patriotism was born out of pain and a sense of humiliation but became self serving on his journey to conquer the world.

Hitler developed his masterpiece character of an "evil-genius". He was intelligent, a philosopher, a masterful orator and knew how to manipulate people. The philosophy is simple:

1. name your enemy or enemies,
2. associate the enemy with a country, group of people or religion,
3. arouse hatred toward your enemy using hateful slogans,
4. induce fear in population derived from the actions of this enemy
5. start a well pretext hate based war against your enemy,
6. ally your government with religious fundamentalists to justify your actions (never forget the simple minded)
7. dispatch the "believers" to intimidate or beat up dissenters.
8. control the propaganda and media through lies to cover up the events (when events are not in your favor)
9. name your critics and dissenters as unpatriotic, traitors, treasonous.
10. empty the treasury of the country giving breaks to the wealthy and your base.
11. intimidate people from participating in elections, and rig elections
12. associate critics and dissenters with homosexuals, communists, abortionist and liberals to quiet opposition


If you can accomplish all these rules, you will get patriotism in your country as you've never seen on the face of the earth (or perhaps once before).
This patriotism will turn your country upside down, push fathers into murderers of their sons, destroy humanity to a level that you wish you were an animal, desecrate your ancestors graves, make your mother a whore, and turn your brother into a pariah, your neighbor into spy, your law enforcement into torturer, politicians into thieves while you lose all your dignity, as your heart and soul shrink into oblivion.

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Contractopoly

The new game in town.
Challenge Dick Cheney and Hallibutron and get rich, get influential...



Play Game

"Halliburton is a fine company, and I'm pleased that I was associated with the company."

Vice President Cheney, 8/7 /2002

Saturday, June 12, 2004

The Eight Days of Reagan


First day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
And Reagan is very dead.

Second day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Third day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
Cameras frozen on
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Fourth day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
CNN nauseating
Cameras frozen on
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Fifth day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
I turned the TV off!
CNN nauseating
Cameras frozen on
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Sixth day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
Paralyzed country
I turned the TV off!
CNN nauseating
Cameras frozen on
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Seventh day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
Media is reminiscing
Paralyzed country
I turned the TV off!
CNN still nauseating
Cameras frozen on
Flag draped casket,
And Reagan is still dead.

Eighth day of Reagan's death,
TV news highjacked
Enough is enough!
Media is reminiscing
Paralyzed country
I want my TV back!
CNN still nauseating
Cameras frozen on
Fancy mausoleum,
And Reagan is still dead.


Regarding the claim that Reagan has brought down the "Evil Empire"
(the Soviet Union) he did as much as the dog brought down the Moon by barking at it...
"Joke: Ronald Reagan really died two months ago, but word was not released until the torture memos-scandal erupted this week. Humor or not, the Reagan death and funeral wiped everything else out of the news. So, as a corrective, we'll devote this blog only to the memos topic, and hope that once the conservative mass-media's orgy of funeral coverage is over, once the attempted elevation of Reagan into political sainthood is finished, the country can return to the ramifications of these memos and start the required investigations for real."

According to Bernard Weiner's Blog: The Bush Dictatorship Revealed: L'etat c'est moi

Friday, June 11, 2004

The Have Mores (You Need Quicktime Plug In To View)



"I trust the American people" G. W. Bush
The Corporatist Banquet

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Convoluted Morality

I'd like to bounce that controversial "football" kicked around by convenience and self righteousness, the virtue of the human race in it's act of survival, the antidote of chaos and anarchy, that little word differentiating man from animal called morality.

Morality, is an inner conviction of man to behave decently and honorably to divorce right from wrong, just from unjust, to set him free from petty, mean or dubious in conduct and character. The word that assures the perpetuation of the species and sets standards of rightness, fairness or equity, and social justice because without them it denies it's own existence. If we all steal, rape, murder, torture, commit adultery and lie the very institution of society crumbles.

I am not an expert on religion but the "ten commandments" states all those virtues necessary for survival of man. Moses was a very wise man, surrounded by a large disoriented tribe before he went up the mountain. He knew he needed to establish laws to guide his people. Perhaps they didn't have excellent carving tools and it took him forty days to carve those laws in stone to make believe that God gave them to him, to force this disobedient tribe that betrayed a god every week, to obey. But basically it was common sense.

We're born and through experience acknowledge right from wrong, good from evil, decent from indecent, honor from dishonor. When we first burn ourselves, we know it hurts and we wouldn't burn someone else because he/she may burn us back...
There is nothing in the Bible about our sexuality except "Thou shalt not commit adultery" which translates to "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" because our neighbor may covet our wife. These are strict norms of living in a tribe or human community. Morality is based on what somebody’s conscience suggests is right or wrong, rather than on what the law says should be done.

What is really interesting how people interpret this notion by the interest of their journey toward self realization and bend the rules to serve them in their quest to submit others to their power. And all is done in the sacred name of God and Morality.

The religious right shrouds itself in contradictions about morality. They preach attack of the abortion clinics, preach to kill doctors who perform abortions, subscribe to capital punishment and basically lie, treat believers with usury; call for the death penalty in a wide range of crimes, including abandonment of the faith, blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, sodomy, homosexuality, striking a parent and ''unchastity before marriage'' (but for women only) all in the name of morality just to convince the believers that they "love life."

Their hate and thirst for blood and punishment is unequalled throughout history. They side with a government that pushes people into poverty because they can sell their religion better to people stricken by poverty and disillusion. But it's all business. The business of selling a new God against the teachings of christian scripture: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. "

They (the hypocrites) convicted Bill Clinton in the court of public opinion as the biggest sinner and his "immorality" reached the highest state of public disgrace and impeachment proceedings for a "blow-job". They ignored all the other moral standards by which he lived and ignored his genuine love of people. He ruled by decency, honor, by the standards of rightness, social justice, fairness and equity.

Most simple minded people refer to morality only regarding sexual behavior. But there are the crooks also riding on it's glory while they can lie, cheat, rape, torture, murder, conspire against their brother and take the food from the mouths of hordes of fellow men, children of a lesser God. That's ok as long as they don't engage in extra-marital sexual activity.

Rudyard Kipling says it the best. All the virtues required to be human.
If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Monday, June 07, 2004

Requiem for Reagan

Sickened by all the media coverage, I traveled back in time to recoup all the Great things a "Great President" did to a Great Country. The deeper I went down memory lane I couldn't remember anything good that came out of his presidency.

So, let's roll the film:

First thing that comes to my mind, sky high interest rates which were good for people who had money in the bank; that was not my case. I was just trying to buy my first suburban home and ended up paying 15.5% interest rate on my mortgage.

Then there was a new gasoline shortage "a la" Jimmy Carter that didn't last long.

And the unemployment rate was over 10%.

Poverty level reached 35% (from 11% before his presidency).

The soup kitchens were thriving, and homelessness reached national hysteria.

Next, I remember the free milk and free meals taken away from the poor children in public schools. I fondly recall the transformation of millions of welfare recipients into workforce. ( Remember the "food stamp queen"?)

Fired the Air Traffic controllers, and destroying their union... another great deed of Reagan. We were just introduced to a new era.

The Great President showered us with 30% tax cuts over three years (mostly to the wealthy) that exacerbated in an accumulated debt of the country of $3 trillion.

How many more "good deeds" does this country need to get this president into the "Hall of Fame"? Well, he sent the marines to Lebanon to stop a civil war, where 241 of them got killed by a terrorist suicide mission. At least he had the guts to take responsibility for it, and courageously withdrew our forces from Lebanon.

And the list goes on: Jailed Noriega when he refused to abide by the rules and gave Panama back to the Panamanians. (God giveth and God taketh it away)

Donated shoulder fire "surface to air" missiles to the "mujahadeen" in Afghanistan, that had Osama Bin Laden in their ranks as a recruiter.

But that was not enough; he sent Rumsfeld to Iraq to ally the Great Satan with Saddam against Iran. So, he sold Saddam chemical and germ warfare, and anthrax to kill some iranians and those rebellious kurds.

Next thing... as a great balancing act he sold weapons to Iran in great secrecy and laundered the money from those sales of arms through the Medeine Cartel to fund the Contras. He made Ollie North a hero, who did all the dirty work for them. There was a great danger that socialism may infiltrate the western hemisphere. And the Contras defeated the Nicaraguan Marxist revolution and Capitalism was thriving in Latin America. When the Tower Commission asked him about the details, he could not recall, or remember 95 times out of 100 answers. But by then Alzheimesr was doing great damage to a great mind.

What else did he do? Well, he deregulated most industries and gave big bones to big dogs. Privatized industries and founded the corporatist system with taxpayers money. He brought back the Republican party and religious right from chaos and confusion with right-wing ideology, created an artificial feel of prosperity with borrowed money and that led to the biggest wave of bankruptcy proceedings in history in our court systems around the country.

But he was a great leader, charismatic, witty, funny and very likable, a Great Communicator and above all the best salesman we ever had. He could sell us anything against our will, need or desire and history should remember him as such.

God rest him in peace and help us undo the perils of his legacy!
Amen

Friday, June 04, 2004

The Voice of Reason from Europe

On the eve of the pResident's visit to the 60th anniversary of D-Day besides thousands of demonstrators in Italy (more expected in France) europeans prepare for the reception of a US President never recorded in history.

I was just a kid watching President Kennedy's reception in Paris by General De Gaulle and the sumptuous parade down on the Avenue des Champs-Elyses toward the Arc de Triomphe in royal carriage with white horses and crowds by thousands cheering on.

I believe this is not going to happen this time, since the europeans can see through a fascist propaganda. Here are some excerpts of their opinion:
THE OUTLAW BUSH ADMINISTRATION By Nicole Bacharan, LeMonde (read the whole article)

"Some people will say that no war is clean, that sadism is unfortunately inherent in human nature. But that is precisely why there are rules to protect combatants from individual acts of barbarism, or worse yet, from barbarism sanctioned by the state. Indeed this war above all others is a war of ideas: it loses all legitimacy if civil or military authorities decide to trample on human rights."


They're not shy to utter the dreaded words:

"At his Inauguration, the President of the United States swears "to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." If this promise has been betrayed, it is up to the Congress to protect the nation.

In plain English, impeachment, the first step towards removal of the President from office."

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Mediasaurus Awakening

After a long hibernation, on the sidelines doing nothing with pom-poms, bells and whistles, news scraps received from Pentagon Daily Briefings' or White House Daily Press Briefings, news reports "on location" with fake backgrounds, "embedded" journalists reporting what the Department Of Defense reports to them, realizing that Jon Stewart's stock has sky-rocketed since he is an expert on reporting "fake" news in front of fake backgrounds with blue-screens and all, that irrelevancy is a dangerous trend to ratings and subsequently income - the sacred cow and meaning of life, plagiarism doesn't pay, nor does Chalobi's blown up intelligence information, and losing democracy (seriously) is not affordable,

Mediasaurus decided to screw Westinghouse, G.E., Disney, Murdoch, or Time Warner and perhaps take a ride on the "information superhighway" before the birth of some new Bernsteins or Woodwards who will penetrate Cheney's Cyborgville and uncover "the master cyborg plan", or the bloggers will be offered their journalistic jobs; it's time for them to rub their eyes and start scraping up the crumbs of events and report the news.

I woke up this morning then almost choked on the first sip of my coffee, seeing on CNN a debate about "the lies in Bush's negative ads about John Kerry", and almost prolonged my four day weekend taking another day off from work to celebrate this "awakening" that would make Robin Williams proud and Jon Stewart jealous of our Corporatis Mediasaurus. All the frustrations of the past, foamings at the mouth and screamings at the TV screen were gone in a second and I was ready to forgive even Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh for all the Clinton bashing throughout the ages.

That's why "they" call us "liberals". We're bleeding hearts, forgive too easily and apologize for being so blunt in unmasking their lies rather than get out our whips and chains, hoods and dog-leashes to punish the sinners in a good "the means justify the end" rhetoric. The truth is that we're too soft on them, defensive and easily intimidated by right-wing slogans as "bleeding-heart liberal", or "tax and spend liberal", rather than calling them who they really are: "stingy fascist", "corporatists" or "soldiers of the fourth reich". Next time around under the Kerry administration let's stop them from turning this country and the greatest prosperity of America in modern times into a circus as they did under Bill Clinton.

This is a big day, my blogger friends. Even the Sun came out this morning after an ugly Memorial Day to help us celebrate that all that ranting and raging was not in vain. This is the "big awakening", the dawn of a new era and the inheriting of 7.2 trillion debt of the country, packeted by our "friends on the other side", and that dreaded Iraqi mess. My heart goes out to John Kerry...