chrisrobincox’s posterous

As I sit here on the cold morning, listening to the morning news on MPR "sponsored by Monsanto", a rage is bubbling up inside of me that is really hard to control.  Okay, yeah, I know, there's nothing new about me feeling enraged.  But with all sincerity, let's just take a minute and look around at the current state of political and social affairs in the United States.  This may take a moment, because there is so much going on lately that warrants rage, for my own sanity I need to list them, so as not to lose track.

On Tuesday, Maine voted no on a gay marriage ammendment.  Why?  Well, the reason of choice seems to be because gay marriage apparently threatens straight marriage.  This one is hard to write about because it is just so fucking dumb.  How and in what parallel reality would two men or two women, or a goat and a lama for that matter, getting married possibly have any effect whatsoever on the marriage that I have with my wife?  Can someone please answer that coherently?  I just don't even know what to say, other than that this level of totally deficient critical thinking is astounding.  It's a miracle that the rest of us are not made dumber by osmossis as a result of the incredible level of ignorance exemplified by the heartless church-going pigs who subscribe to this flawed logic.  The "institution of marriage between a man and a woman" as they like to call it has been forever, in my eyes, trivialized to the point that if my wife and I were to get married again, we would go out of our way to utilize the traditions of some far away spiritual council, wanting nothing to do with the Christian thinking of the American right.  Maine, you can kiss my ass.

From the latest defeat for gay people, we move now to Afghanistan.  The use of drone attack planes - unmanned remote control bombers - has been called out as the proof that “there is no longer any doubt that targeted killing has become official U.S. policy,”
according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker.  The implications of unmanned drone bombers crossing borders to bomb strategic targets without the permission of the country being targeted are vast.  But, let's leave the political realities out for a minute and talk about the human realities.  For example, the first two strikes (coordinated by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence) took place on Jan. 23, the President’s third day in office and the second of these hit the wrong house, that of a pro-government tribal leader that killed his entire family, including three children, one just five years of age.  But, it didn't stop there.  In fact, Obama has done nothing but increase the amount of drone strikes since coming into office, so this cannot be blamed on the war that he inherrited, or whatever other excuse the Obama Administration might try to use to save blame.  According to Sherwood Ross of the Chicago Daily News, "So many Predators and its more heavily armed companion, the Reaper, are being purchased that defense manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, of Poway, Calif., can hardly make them fast enough. The Air Force is said to possess 200."  Here's the thing, these attacks are happening in Pakistan.  Wasn't that the country that Obama said in his Presidential debates that he would go into if he had "actionable intelligence"?  Maybe he got that intelligence, I don't know, because I sure have never heard Obama talk about his intention to bomb the shit out of the Pakistani hills with remote control bombers, with or without the consent of the American people.  If that's what he's doing in a country where the American people barely know we are even at war in colusion with, just imagine what is going on in Afghanistan.  Let's just leave it at this: casualties are at an all time high in that country, and there are only more civilian deaths now than there were before Obama took office.  Perhaps Obama should change the spelling of his name to OBOMBA.

From the automated bombing of innocent civilians to the inability to kick enough ass to get done what the people have been demanding for decades, universal health coverage.  I know, this one is not only Obomba's fault, it's primarilly the fault of the idiots who elected a bunch of Blue Dog Democrats to the House in order to have a 60-vote majority.  Rude awakening: conservative Democrats are basically traditional Republicans, fiscal conservatives, and somewhat socially liberal.  I'm not even going to spend much time on this one, because there are two basic truths that have been proven time and time again, two truths that apparently Obomba has no interest in sharing with the voting pulbic: One, the vast majority of the population of the US is in favor of a full single payer universal health care system, one where every single person regardless of age and pre-existing conditions is covered 100%.  People are even in favor of a small tax increase if they are to receive this kind of coverage.  [You'll have to just trust me on that one, because I'm too lazy to go look for the studies and polling results right now, but they are out there in multitude.]  Two, until the heath care delivery system is taken off of the market in its entirety, there will never be any incentive for hospitals and the doctors they employ, to focus on preventative programs and to actually HEAL people, as opposed to provide services requested by the sick.  Right now, doctors and hospitals receive bonuses as a result of providing more services, regardless of the actual health effects of those services.  In a universal coverage system, the bonuses would come as a result of doctors healing people.  We'll just leave it at that, and say the current health bill being discussed is a disaster that comes nowhere close to this kind of reality.  And mark my words: IF THIS BILL PASSES, WE WILL NOT SEE ANOTHER HEALTH CARE BILL DEBATED FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER  3-5 YEARS. 

From a pointless health care debate that takes everything BUT the people's desires into consideration, we move to current economic connundrum.  Here it is: There are those who believe that the human condition is at its best when the individual is left to his or her own devices on a quest for "enlightened self-interest" ala Adam Smith.  That is, when individuals can live their lives without the burdon of the social responsibility of giving a shit about any other human beings, they are able to achieve their own personal goals, caring not how those achievments affect others around them.  It is a essentially survival of the fittest mentality, very popular these days with the Libertarians, who I would argue are basically Republicans who want to have sex and do drugs - stolen from Bill Mahr.  Then, there are those who feel that the human condition is best served when the least among us are cared for to the extent that no individual is allowed to sink below a certain level living condition.  At least, that is the ideal to strive for.  Universal health coverage is a step in that direction.  In order for this type of society to exist in America, there are certain industries that would need to be taken off of the capitalistic grid, if you will.  They are health care, education, child care, and the commons, which consists of all of those resources on Earth that are shared and limited in scope; air, water, soil, forest, sky, etc.  This goes very steadily against everything that America, and its so-called "free market" regime, stands for.  In the minds of most American leaders, everything should be owned by somebody, because private ownership is better than collective ownership.  It's more effecient and profitable. 

We are at a precipice in America, maybe in the world.  The human race has to decide if we want to continue utilizing this planet for future generations, or if we want to simply plunder it to its depths and then just say, like a business man, "it's been nice doing business with ya."  Bomboning innocent civilians in foreign countries in order to preserve our "way of life" is no way to evolve.  Making the health of our citizens nothing more than the proverbial widget to be sold on the open market for the highest profit, resulting from the lowest possible investment, is no way build a healthy and productive demos.  Denying the rights of men who want to love other men, and women who want to love other women, to marry is not the way to create peace and reconcilliation. 

And finally, as the first elected Black President of the United States, avoiding conflict at home, while sewing it abroad, is just about the best possible way to ensure another generation of racist, unthinking, me-first Americans.  Mr. Obama, it's time for you to do the hard, but historically rewarding task of stepping up in front of the American people and telling them you are listening, and that you will do your job from here on out, which means doing the right thing even if that results in losing your second term.  End all our wars of aggression; demand, by Presidential decree, a universal singer-payer system based on the Medicare model; put all those fucking banks out of business and give back the money that has been stolen from the public; invest in people owning homes, not in banks loaning money to people to buy homes; bring back free or low cost public education at all levels; raise the tax rates of the extremely wealthy back to 90% where it was before the 1970s; refocus the military toward that of humanitarian missions only, unless we are actually attacked; get rid of all our nuclear weapons; refuse to import goods made with labour standards that we all know are criminal; invest like HELL in the clean energy economy, and replant the forests we have been tearing down all over the world; make mountain top removal mining illegal; reform the prisons; legalize recreational use of drugs; and refocus the goal of the United States from being the richest country in the world to being the most humanitarian country in the world.  Sure, you can't do it alone, but you aren't alone, because the vast majority of the population would be behind you if you just spoke to us! 

I don't know why I am addressing Mr. Obomba, he's not going to listen to little old me.  Or is he?  Doesn't matter, because the real question is are we, the people, going to make him listen?

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