Grinding Our Own Ax

It often seems that our elected representatives are unresponsive to the needs of the average American. If you’re a millionaire or part of a large special (self)interest group, you matter. Otherwise, you're one vote for the lesser of two evils you never wanted in the first place doesn’t motivate you to the polls. Your indolence is repaid in kind, people say. You can’t complain if you don’t vote, often follows.

By this standard, nearly half of all eligible voters have been unqualified to complain for more than a century. Therefore things are actually twice as bad as we hear, so thank God for standards.

Many have opted out of politics altogether, especially those who suffer from a conscience, extended recall, or the ethically afflicted who are forever damned to have ethics. Roger Waters might say, “They have become comfortably numb”.  While militant animal rights activists claim meat is murder, this equivalent puts politics on par with an incestuous anal rape murder suicide pact, if it's allowable to mention such a thing in polite company.

But wait, rape is involuntary. How could it be a pact? The same could be said of our politics! We’re choosing to get raped and murdered. We’re grinding our own ax.

The rest of us just keep playing along as if Republican and Democratic legislation produces different results. The only differences occur in the  rhetoric which precedes the vote. Words like “pro-business” get replaced with “income equality”, “border protection” replaced with “environmental protection”, and “freedom” with “tolerance”, all  semantics designed to motivate specific demographics up the same slaughterhouse ramp. Meat is murder when it's butchered from other human beings, but it's a renewable resource and green. Soylent Green. We’ve become comfortable cannibals.

One path designed to appeal to class envy the other to foster personal greed, both result in the evisceration of another sister or brother. The politicians just hand out the freshly sharpened axes and wait for the meal to come. A wolf lies in wait, while their more carnivorous primate cousin lies and waits for the meal to come.

The Trees by Rush

There is unrest in the forest. There is trouble with the trees

for the maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignore their pleas.

Trouble in the maples and they are quite convinced they're right.

They say the oaks are just too lofty and they grab up all the light.

But the oaks can't help their feelings if they like the way they're made,

and they wonder why the maples can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest and the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'oppression!' And the oaks, just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights  
'The oaks are just too greedy, we will make them give us light!’

Now there's no more oak oppression for they passed a noble law

and the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, ax, and saw.

Strange Drug

Dedicated to the victims of Mandalay Bay

We're captivated and intoxicated. We're all hooked and we can't admit it. We live for the adrenaline rush that comes from violence. It's the status symbol and status report of our culture. Murder is on our streets, and pumps through our veins. It is what we eat. It fills our head and kills our heart. Until it blows our aorta apart. 

From the dime store novels of wild west outlaws to brawls on the playground, from Saturday morning cartoons to Dirty Harry, from CSI to SVU, and from UFC to CNN, all fortified with violence. We live for the stuff, can't get enough murder and mayhem, uppercuts, and head shots, demolition derbies, and laser guided bombs. We'll spend all night getting piss drunk until we're begging for a fight. Do you feel lucky, punk? With tickets, taxes, and our time we'll pay for it all because violence is a value. The quickest high is watching another man die. Adrenaline addiction's gateway is the human eye  

Professional football, pay-per-view title fights, and serial murderer’s stories in print or extra feature Blu-ray. Yes, we'll pay for them all.

Then we wonder why road rage, rape, and drive-bys show up in our neighborhoods. A few blocks away, for Christ's sake! We question the morality, sanity, and upbringing of others. We lament the decay of family values and basic respect for human life.

We constantly shake our heads and ask what's wrong with the world while watching a thrilling take-down on Cops. Show me your hands, mother fucker! The kids are playing Call of Duty and listen to Biggie Smalls way too loud in the media room... 

... the wife is in the kitchen finishing up the dishes and muttering, “Oh, my God” under her breath, over the horrors of the day delivered into your home on MSNBC and every other network, channel, station, headline, everything you see. It's enough to drive you crazy and blow a bullet hole in our society. He stab a man for not saying please. Then, stood there and watched him bleed out with no empathy. Thanks for the lesson in civility. It's not real, Just the adrenaline rush through the glowing screen. So, give me another and another and another victim... I said, please. 

Once in a while, you remember your fraying humanity and ask, "What's wrong with the world? Why are we going to shit?" 

You voted for the law and order candidate. You just don't get it. You've done your part. 

It's poetic and prophetic that the number one killer of men is failure of the heart? 

It suits us right.

Hey, Seal Team Six… is that on tonight? With the plane exploding, screams, then a huge fire fight... then a grenade hits him right between the eyes. I love that part.... electrocuted... the shark tore half his leg off... and the cluster bombs...fucking awesome! (Fades into silence)

Yes, we will pay for it all.

In nightly single woman attacks, gangland style drive-bys, and our children's lives... 

We are paying for it all... 

To hell we go. 
We reap as we sow.

We reap.

We reap.

We reap.

Our Perpetual President

Insert Preferred Face Here

Here we are just eight months from the Inauguration, and we have the President we’ve always had. He's militarily assertive, immigration passive, pro pseudo-free trade, fiscally reckless, and totally unaccountable for anything he said prior to last November seventh. That's the President we've always had, at least as far back as I can remember.

How many times will the American voter fall for the same lame routine before they comprehend: This is a sham! It's a different President, different party, different Cabinet, and the same damn policies hidden behind a different face with a different style we love or hate so much we perceive it as “real change” for better or worse?  Real hope or deep despair, and in our ecstasy or despondency we fail to notice nothing has changed except our brain chemistry.

It always takes a few months for the transformation to occur. Like a frog placed in slowly warming water, you can boil him without the frog panicking. Voters react the same.  As long as the newly elected President slowly morphs from who he claimed to be into who the previous President was, all is well. The President’s primary responsibility is maintaining the status quo unless something which benefits the real Kingmakers of the nation is required. Then, the leader of the free world becomes the lead salesman with easy credit terms.

Currently, we're all worked up about our elections being hacked by the Russians.  However, our elections were hacked long ago by perpetrators much closer to home.  Take a look at the Constitution of the United States of America and find the words “Political Party”.  The Framers never intended for two private, non-profit corporations to hold a duopoly on America’s republic. Yet, this is exactly what we have today. No wonder we have a Perpetual President. The game is rigged.

Since 1901, we've had an extra-Constitutional election system for the highest office in the land and no one seems to mind as long as the Russians aren't involved. The defunct USSR had one political party throughout its existence. We, in the free world deemed such a system “totalitarian”, which indeed it was. Today, in the United States we effectively have two political parties which we hold up as the world standard of freedom. Had the Soviets had the foresight to split the Communist party in two, say Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, then American tourists would have spent the Cold War years vacationing in the Crimea, strolling the streets of St. Petersburg, standing in line to see Lenin’s decaying corpse, and the lyrics of the Beatles’, Back in the USSR would make a lot more sense.

The de facto ruling duopoly die wasn't fully cast until the 1920’s . Alarmed by the growing popularity of the Socialist and Communist Parties, Republicans and Democrats colluded to restrict ballot access to “third parties” by requiring a certain percentage of registered voters sign a petition within a specific time period prior to ballot inclusion. Many of the requirements are so stringent as to provide an exhausting exercise, if not an impenetrable barrier, to each State ballot for all except Republican and Democratic candidates. It just screams, “Freedom!" like William Wallace.  Doesn't it? 

Yes, I’m rather disappointed, as well.  

Imagine for a moment what such a lock on power shared between two ruling factions who melee with each other in public, but share an agenda behind closed doors could accomplish. Dare we call it totalitarianism?

•        One party calls for war, the other opposes conflict just not enough to prevent the war until the opposition holds the reigns of power and the “kinder gentler” war continues unabated or quietly escalates.

•          One party pushes through national health care, the other opposes it just not enough to prevent its passing into law until the opposition holds the reigns of power when they mount repeal and replace with something so ill constructed and poorly packaged that the original law stands firm,

•         One party pushes through sweeping legislation which strips the people of long cherished liberties, the other mounts a vigorous defense just not vigorous enough to prevent passage. When the opposition holds the reigns of power they overwhelmingly vote to extend the liberty stripping legislation year after year, into decades. 

•      One party rams through annual authorization to bomb anyone anywhere at any opportunity and the opposition party vehemently acquiesces in the name of bi-partisanship.

The people torn into feuding factions are emotionally inflamed like adolescents by rhetoric and bluster.  They remain ignorant of the strings upon which they dance, demonstrate, brawl, and bicker. The people endlessly bicker over some forgone conclusions made many years before they were aware there was a choice to be made.

Imagine for a moment what such power shared between two ruling parties could yield. Just for a moment… into decades. It doesn't take much imagination, does it?

Now, look away, close your eyes, and pretend you never read these words.

Polices Remain Unchanged

because 

You'll say yes to anything... 

Stuff We Aughta' Do - Part 1

Common sense Ideas for (and from) Exceptional Idiots...

1. Switch to the Metric System

2. Use retired Army medics and Navy corpsman (E-7 and up) as a first line of defense in health care.

3. Stop giving credit to terrorist groups on the news.

4. Calculate every government spending program at 140% of expected cost and count every new revenue stream at 60% of estimated return.

5. Require that all laws be written to the “reasonable man” standard, so a reasonable man could readily understand the law.

6. Stop replying to things Kim Jun Un says.

7. Make business start ups easy as opening a preferred customer account.

8. Teach entrepreneurship in elementary school and high school.

9. Redefine the word “community” as a verb.

10. Make the board of directors of pharmaceuticals take every new medication for a month prior to approval.

11. Stop glorifying violence as a way to resolve conflicts.

12. Let others make their own decisions.

13. Teach children that respect is earned but courtesy is given.

14. Have American car design, American innovation, and American Product, etc. competitions to inspire American ingenuity.

15. Do campaign finance reform so only registered voters may contribute a maximum of $500.00 and all money not spent on the current campaign are used to fund campaign finance enforcement.

16. Write a national law which will require transparency for all political parties. All internal documents, video, or other media would become public domain after two years.

17. Slowly transform Social Security from a Ponzi scheme into a means tested investment program.

18. Promote and facilitate the creation of tiny house communities in and around major urban areas.

19. Offer a tax credit for residential, commercial, and industrial properties which  increase by 30% or more their thermal insulation up to the recommended amount.

20. Outlaw lobbyists.

21.No, I mean really outlaw lobbyists.

Red, White, and Blue Light Special

What does it mean to “support our troops”?

• Does it mean that we accept every war without question? I would hope not, because that bumper sticker would read, “slaughter our troops", or “screw our troops”, or maybe just “use our troops”.  

• Does it mean that when they come home from whatever conflict they sacrificed through service to our nation, that they will be cared for by the nation who put them in harm's way? One would hope so, but a cursory review of American history doesn't support this expectation. We do not always support our troops when they come marching home. Sometimes we treat them rather poorly.

• Does it mean that we will exhaust every other conceivable option before we put their lives at risk? No, our leaders often incite us to dance to the rhythm of their war drums based on lies and contorted half truths, but we dance all the same. 

• Does supporting our troops mean that in those very few exceptional cases when armed conflict is absolutely necessary that we will ensure that they have the best training, equipment, and standard of living to complete their mission? Here we do support our troops fairly well, but we could always do better especially when it comes to financially compensating them for their commitment. Shouldn't an E-1 make as much as the person who types up the lunch menu at General Dynamics or drives the on-campus bus at Raytheon? Shouldn't they?

• Does it mean that when we do send them into combat we will provide them with clearly defined and realistic victory conditions to attain which will result in most, if not all, of them returning to their loved ones back home? I believe this is one of the most important ways we can demonstrate support for our troops and I believe this is where support for our troops is abysmal. When conflicts drag on for years and then into decades, we are doing a piss poor (pardon my military vernacular) job of supporting our troops. We might as well have them standing in a parking lot at parade rest as we walk past the dress right dressed soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and crack each one between their eyes with a ball peen hammer. Not hard enough to kill or cripple them, but just hard enough to make them really hurt, and eventually resent us for the way we “support” them. Well, if we draw blood, I suppose  there are always plenty of bumper stickers floating around to bind their wounds, their minds, their families, and their broken lives.

• Or does it mean we were willing to spend $2.75 once on the cheapest form of patriotic fervor money can buy?

Supporting Endless War is not Supporting our Troops, 
it's Abandoning Them.