The dividing space which doesn't really exist
One of the most wonderful things that I have realized myself is that although we all hold sturdy political positions that differ; they all revolve around the same emotions of the same reality, our families. The crutch that we need to bust from is that we are so different, when the reality is I think most people politically sit very close. The media, politicians, and others have turned our democracy away from its design, as a system of accountability. We often get so lost in the finger pointing that accountability is the last thing on our minds; we are now at a place where we don't expect accountability in government anymore. For me at least this is a very scary and dark time for our democracy.

I may define my self as a Democrat, but that doesn't define who and what I respect or believe. I am a deep patriot with an old soul, and a love for this country that can bring me to tears in an instant. I want to be able to tell my two girls the same things my parents told me about the American dream. I actually want to leave them a better country then it is today. It’s a habit from being an environmental conservative leaving campsites in a better condition then when I arrived.

Our culture and roots can tell us where we come from but they don't ever define our future. The future is really what we make of it and I am always optimistic. I also am not a Bush fan as you already know, but after 9/11 I gave him too much credit. I allowed my emotional feelings towards the beliefs of others to enrage my ability to seek the pertinent questions before I supported the Iraq efforts. I was wrong, yes it would be easier if I wasn’t but it wouldn’t make my position right, or better, or easy.

I am also not a religious man, although I was raised catholic, attended catholic private school, and even was an alter boy. I have nothing but fond memories of my experiences yet I found my own faith to be a fraud. The religion wasn't the fraud I don’t see knowledge of any kind as a fraud, even my knowledge that is wrong. It was my belief that religion in any form didn’t give me deeper and clearer insight into the person I wanted to become. I was being a fraud to myself attempting to understand something infinitely complex like a human being with something that limited the complexities in everything with a specific ideology, perspective, or religion. John Lennon actually said it best “I don’t believe in Beatles I just believe in me.” I can only count on myself to build my own perspectives and to discern reality, I will be wrong but I must turn myself into the wind and keep fighting for the truth; it’s all we have in a democracy.

The CIA world fact book says there are almost 300 million Americans. We have come to believe we can fit all the information pertinent to them in a couple of hours in spaces of time we call news. I happen to think that we are more complex then this. I love to flip things around and change my own perspective because it opens me up to the possible realities that may exist. 300 million Americans are all watching almost the exact same news, about the same subjects and trying to find the one program out of a half dozen that best suits the perspective they already have.

That doesn’t mean much until we know how that affects our awareness of the information we consume. One of my favorite topics to bring up to people is inflation. It is something that most people assume they can’t understand. The only thing they need to really understand about it is that when the value of money goes up those who hold the money automatically have more.

There are only a couple of hundred thousand I am not sure of the exact number but it’s way less then 1% of Americans, that make more than 200,000 dollars a year. Why does this group of people who own the bulk of the money and assets in America get more for doing nothing? I never found this question asked in the news. I know it is my own question and it remains for me unanswered.

I think what I am getting at is you can’t be sure what you don’t know until you know you don’t know it. If you only think inflation is about how things cost more you would never know that it’s really about the value of money and while the distribution of money doesn’t change its value does. Those who have the money benefit greatly from a system that holds the rest of us under it’s thumb; simultaneously increasing the value of those that control it while reducing the value of those that don’t.

An unconnected story this week also illustrates the problem with trimming information. I am not sure that you are aware a four star general was relieved of his duties last week. The news stated it was because of infidelity, at the time he was a week away from finalizing his divorce. He had been separated from his wife and she even condoned his relationship with this other woman. The woman was not in the military so there was no conflict in dating a subordinate. He was also three months from eligible retirement. This particular officer had joined as a private and earned his way all the way to four stars. Now who doesn’t have respect for the effort this man has given his country? No special treatment in his career he had to earn it, in the end to get railroaded out on some BS that he is having an affair. I would think this would be a liberal media’s wet dream to expose this injustice.

We are taught that we all have the same ability to achieve success in this country. The reality is without accountability a man who dedicates his life’s work to his country can be tossed aside when he gets in the way of the people who pull the strings in the system.
- posted by Wayne @ 3:14 PM

 
This war is morally indefensible
If you have come to believe that the words “fixing the facts around the policy,” means anything other then “fixing the facts around the policy” your stupidity continues to make heroes out of the love of our mothers. One of those mothers happens to have camped herself outside the presidents retreat to ask a question about those words. The president somehow believes that although those words were used to describe his actions that our soldiers are being sent to their deaths nobly. She has made it her responsibility to understand what was so noble about the cause her child and many others was sent off to die for.

If you find yourself defending against the opinion of a grieving mother you need a reality check. How deluded does someone have to be to question the love a mother has for her child? Every time a voice stands opposed to this president a pattern of sleaze and slime oozes from the infotainment ditto brigade to assail that voice. Why shouldn’t we assume they are doing it for the man they are protecting?

Who in their right mind defends a president’s lack of performance and reality by bashing a grieving mother? I hope that if I ever acted so asinine my own mother would slap that dumb out of me!

There are too many grieving mothers who only think about two things. That they will never see their child again and for what “noble cause” has their child been sacrificed?

We shouldn’t hesitate to engage these moms in order understand their plight, especially if we can’t empathize with them, because “we the people” are creating them. I could almost forgive the few corporations who own the news supply chain for completely missing the boat on a grieving mothers reality. Except that the very meaning of the society that I love and embrace is accountability. It is because of accountability that I will not ever forget how a grieving mother was treated by the perpetually wrong supply chain of news.

In fact that there is no one available to be accountable to a grieving mother of our fallen soldiers is bad enough. Watching the presidents pack of political hit men attack this grieving mother for doing the job they pretend to only exposes, to this American there is nothing more important to them but their president. Attacking a mother in such a state shows that anyone who cracks the facade of the man whose image they keep painting over will suffer their wrath. It is an epic fraud wake up America!

Now for reality, no matter what tactic is used against a grieving mother she will always be morally above it all. Her love and pain is pure, unlike the motivations of politicos. There are not many images more powerfully tuned to the human soul then that of a mother morning the loss of her child. This is an image we should all know well because it is our lack of compassion towards her loss and her reality that will turn more of the love our mothers into fallen heroes. Someone has to be accountable in a democracy there should be no exceptions. Not even for a president who has always had exceptions for his
- posted by Wayne @ 2:54 PM