Friday, March 25, 2011

Update: Libya

Looks like the U.S.A is currently pushing for NATO to run things from now on in the Libya fight for freedom. Which means yet again I may have to change the title of my next essasy. I advise those that maybe reading this to stay tuned to your local news broadcast to keep abreast of the situation. Meanwhile before I develop another opinion I too will be watching the news. (Mostly Charlie Rose.)
I will be giving any readers interested more update to follow.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Oh, Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!

Oh Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!

This essay was written before the new developments with the U.N involvement with the approval of the Arab League of a ‘No Fly Zone’ over Libya. So of course my readers (whoever you are) must please excuse the datedness of this essay. As it stand the next essay to follow ‘A fine time to be neutral! Do something Washington!’ title will of course have to be changed. The new title ‘Situation Libya- The ‘No Fly Zone debate.’ There is always an apparent down side to writing a blog article when you have other interests beyond trying to add your thoughts to the various opinions out there in the world. (One of these days if my “readers” are really, really, good I might right an essay on why I do this facata thing in the first place.) Meanwhile the upside to be just one step behind all the news out there in the world is that I get to have a fresh new take on situations. Believe it or not it’s not always not the smartest move to be stuck in your opinion, being set in your ways about an opinion you feel strongly about can really leave you looking like a fool, a stubborn one at that, plus you can never learn new experience in life if you never have an open mind. That being said I still believe some of my original premise that the current situation needs to be supported. However this preface is turning into another article. So ‘readers’ here’s “Oh Shit! The Revolution Was Televised!”

And it was on the internet where it all started. Wow! I mean wow! Talk about coming out of left field. Like I said at my introduction to this piece; who would have bet on a revolution happening in the Middle East? Not me? Not all the political pundits out there who were to busy demonizing Middle Eastern cultural, religion, and politics. Not the many people who were buying all the propaganda since 9/11. I being one of those people, after a while of course I went back to using my sense of fairness and realize the difference between Muslim Fundamentalist Terrorists and every other Muslim in the world. The powers that be of course just love it when we fight and fuss at each other for shear bullshit. It takes away from all the cold callus crap that they throw at us year after year, decade after decade. But I digress.

Any who, when I first heard the second shot heard around the world my first thought was of course as mentioned earlier was “Wow” then I listen to the anchorpersons on the T.V news networks and the pundits on Charlie Rose. (By the by if you really want all the real deal blow by blow your best bet is to watch Charlie Rose on PBS. More lately in other articles about how the Republican government in Congress screwed the American People out of another positive free thinking organization.) It really brought home the real ideals of Democracy.

Now when your average person, no matter where they from, think about democracy they automatically think America. No matter the varying opinion of American Foreign policy or American Government interference. But ask any political historian that hasn’t been indoctrinated by the American mythos and they’ll tell you; democracy did not start nor does it end with the United States Of America. I could go on about the Greeks, Romans, and the Magna Carta-brought to us ironically from England, but then I do not think there is any person that has patience with a ten page essay on that? Sufficed to say anyone with half a brain must realize that the foundation of most democratic countries owes a debt to those mentioned and many more. Democracy can be found in Italy, France, England, and Canada. Look east in Eastern Europe and people were fighting for their unalienable rights in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Kosovo.

Many people like myself had doubts that in regions like Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and yes especially Libya. I mean along with almost everybody that watches the news and hears every C.I.A conspiracy theory or story out there has heard about the U.S government support of countries such as this, (for the exception of Libya believe or not), facing the facts or stories that because of one interest or another; Oil, so-called Political Stability, plain ole Economics. Whatever! You name it there always seems to be a reason for letting civil liberties falter. People, brave people have been thrown into prison, killed, tortured, because they dared to blow the whistle on these dictatorships that flourish for whatever cold-hearted, so-called logical reason that some governments can name. The thinking that someday, some how the security of Democracy in Democratic countries, the interests that seemed important at the time will do some good in the long run.

We citizens in these democratized countries who live in shear bliss of ignorance of the hard fought revolutions that brought us here have no idea what our current democratic governments have done in the name of stability and how unstable these countries under these dictatorships were and are. So we’re so surprised at this because we have forgotten that civil rights didn’t start with Martian Luther King or Gandhi, freedom wasn’t something that was forged at Valley Forge, for a people to feel like they have some sort of control over their lives in these countries they just can’t pick up a picket sign and protest in front of their local government with no more stress than standing behind some barricade and a couple of local police force. No in order to fight for the same democracy that you and me take for granted these people have to face military force, detainment, torture, and martial law. One day we in the Western democracy will have to face the fact that freedom aian’t free for anyone. Working for it takes work that I don’t think the average person in a free democracy would have the strength for.

So bravo to the brave people in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya! Unlike that old saying from the sixties. The revolution has been televised!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Tea Party Whine

The Tea Party Whine

The Republican party have created or has at least had a hand in creating a monster. A seven headed hydra called the Tea Party. I say that they had at least a hand in it because when you look closely at the Tea Party you will find that this party has a lot in common with the current Republican Party. I know I’m not the first one to make that inference but the way the Tea Party is acting one would think that they were just these sweet misunderstood naive middle-class infants that just want things the way they used to. You know before some minorities became the majority and defeated their petty, vindictive, insane, dictator?

Yes well though I’m sure they miss the days when taxes went high in just about every Red state in the union. The Tea Party seems to suffer from a kind of insane amnesia that makes them totally forget the last eight years. I know there is such a thing as selective memory but come on! But hey I’m just some blogger who is just your average American who watches the T.V news and reads the paper from time. What do I know right? So of course this blogger has decided to do some research and find out about these Tea Partiers.

Are they blind dupes of the Republican Party? Are they just a bunch of dissatisfied Middle-class sore losers? Or are they the slack-jawed shock troops building up to just one more Republican coop? Who are these Tea Party whiners really? Let us start at the beginning.

Let’s take a look from the beginning, shall we? It all started out quite benign. One girl in college practicing her fundamental America rights. As American as Apple Pie but of course just like real apple pie, once you look closely at the nutrition list you see how really unhealthy that apple pie really is. (Do you know how much calories there are in apple pie? Real apple pie with brown sugar and lard in the crust? Whoooo! You don't want to know!) But you will want to know about Keli Carender. Ms. Carender an actress, Math Teacher, and improv comedian with a democratic boyfriend woke up one day to find herself interested in the 2008 political race as a voter but none of the candidates appealed to her. Like most people of the year her age the whole get out the vote thing attracted nearly apathetic young people. Of course when the powers that be decide to use the youth vote they conveniently forget that getting young people interested in the political arena is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. You can't get young people interested in politics and voting as a way of getting their individual voices heard and then expect things to go the way you want. The Democrates via President Obama found out the hard way.

Keli Carender not only got interested but she also got dissatisfied. The how and wherefores are to much to mention in this essay so please go read look here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html Suficed to say Ms. Carender just wanted her voice to be heard and like many a budding activist she found that in order for her voice to be heard she must find other like minded individuals to back her up. Oh, she found them alright! And then that's when the pie started to hit the fan!

Groups fell under the Tea Party umbrella that varied from Libertarians to Right-Wing white power pundits. It will be up to the readers to judge which out of the many groups to be most concerned about. As for this writer the main thrust of this essay is to point out the Republicans who used the Tea Party for their own ends. As of this writing the Republicans have retaken the House due to the overwhelming 'support' of the Tea partiers. One of the many accusations that was brought up during the 'high' point of the Tea Party surge was Astroturfing. That is when a political group with an agenda; like the Republicans, who put into place a supposed grassroots organization with apparently no support from any political group at all. That means that anyone looking at a grassroots movement on the surface sees a group of people who are just your average citizen with a gripe that wants government to change certain policy. Only problem is once you look deep under the surface you find the puppet masters behind it all.

Now I don't know how stuff like that happens but I can give a good guess. One young person who just happens to be a Republican (or chooses to become one) gets like minded people together, a political group (let's just say, umm, The Republican party), co-ops the movement. Whether it's by monetary support, Public Relations, or Politicians coming out of the wood work 'all of a sudden' to support this grassroots organization. Something like that. At any rate as far as this writer can see it looked more like another subtle attempt of the Republican party to climb back into the political arena with a vengeance! Subtle the Republican party don't do so good. (Pardon the bad english. ;) ) Because to get on point, think 1995. The Republicans initiated a government shut-down putting the blame on the then Democratic President Bill Clinton and his policy. (Yeah, that worked!) When the public turned on them like rabid wolverines the Republicans were sweating it like a white supremacist at a million man march. (They must have heaved a sigh of relief when the Monica Lewisky 'scandal' broke out.) Now as then a lot is riding on the Tea baggers to back them up while they ride into Congress to burn and slash through every social program they can catch.

So Tea Partiers, what are they? Republican dupes or a grassroots middle-class trying to save their own asses?

I want to be fair I really do. America is about freedom of choice. But when the choice is either saving the middle-class on the backs of the poor yet again or going into another reccesion and using American know how and innovation to pull ourselves out of another economic whole, I say let's pull up our sleeves America and stop whinning!