For the previous 48 Thanksgivings, I never really got it. My son was born on November 25, and I’m certainly thankful for that- his arrival turned my life around at a pivotal juncture and made me in part the man I am today. He provides me an endless source of pride and inspiration, and I wish him a happy birthday, a day early. But this Thanksgiving means something different to me, something deeper.

I had a stroke in the early morning of August 2nd. It caused me no physical pain, and none of the classic signs of stroke, other than my speech became jumbled. I spent a week in the hospital, and now after three months I have returned to work, so outwardly all is getting back to normal. And I guess it is, at least in the day to day mechanics of life. I awake at the same time, go to work and come home. Other than not really enjoying loud music, it’s almost as if the stroke never happened.

But inwardly, everything has changed. As the old saying goes, you don’t miss your water till the well runs dry. I have never been “cute”, and I tend to gain weight, so I never thought of myself as attractive and popular, but I knew that I was smart. Unschooled perhaps, but well-read and with a burning quest for knowledge. The stroke has changed that- I no longer trust my brain. I fumble when speaking, particularly at end of the day when I’m fatigued. Words do not come as easily as before, and my writing is not up to the level I was accustomed to. My doctor says within 6 months to a year I can regain 95% of my abilities. I say no. The brain reroutes itself in injury, steering blood away from the damaged parts, and learns new pathways for the things it needs to do. So I have set as my goal not 95%- but 100%. Or 150%. Why not take this event as a motivation to get smarter? I read more now, to overcome my problems with numbers I have become addicted to Sudoku. I do logic problems, crosswords, and other puzzles everyday, to keep my brain growing.

Until my stroke, I didn’t “get” Thanksgiving. Until I faced the prospect of not having life- or dealing with far more setbacks that I have so far- I never really looked at each day as the blessing it is. I’m alive, able to exist in the world pretty much as before, but now I see that in a more spiritual way. I am not religious, I don’t believe in deities, but I truly believe that something, somewhere, wanted me to live. It has enthused my life with a greater purpose. I look at my friends, small in number but large in heart, and I am thankful for them. I listen to music with even more appreciation than before, just at a lesser volume. I read stories of stroke victims, including the great My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, and find comfort at the shared experiences of others.

But the stroke, although it has robbed me of some aspects of life, it has given me a far greater gift than anything I am temporarily beset by. It has given me an appreciation of love. When I was in the hospital, a dear friend came to visit. I have known Wade Lowe my entire life, ever since he moved down the street when I was five. His son was one of my best friends in school, and Wade’s guitar shop, Diapason, sparked in me a life-long love of guitars. He arrived in my hospital room, a place he was familiar with considering his two heart attacks, and said that once I got back we would walk everyday. And so we have. I jokingly call him my personal trainer, but he’s far more than that. He is one of the happiest, most loving persons I have ever met. He seems to exist to, as his daughter remarked, “to do good things for people”. He has taken me under his wing many times in my life, far more than I would care to admit. I hope to replay the favor- and the love he has shown me- someday.

My wife Nancy and I are not “people persons”. She would rather draft ten emails than leave a voicemail, and other than friends and family, dislikes the phone. But she forgot all that when I was in need. She worked the phones tirelessly setting doctor visits, getting me setup for speech therapy, and a hundred other things. She finished my sentences when I couldn’t, and listened to my frustration when things got rough without complaint. She took my dietary restrictions as a challenge to her chefing abilities, never once letting it get the better of her. She has comforted me when I am stressed or fearful, listened to my woes, and truly made me know, finally, what a “partner” is. I truly feel I wouldn’t be here without her. This Thanksgiving, unlike years past, is only the two of us. And that’s alright with me. Because until this year, Thanksgiving was pretty much just an occasion to overindulge and eat Nancy’s stellar cooking. Not this year. Having been faced with the alternative, I look at life- and particularly life with her- as a blessing.

I finally get Thanksgiving. I hope you do too.

Well, had a few elections last night, how did that turn out?

Mississippi Voters Reject Personhood Amendment
Mississippi voters rejected a radical “personhood” constitutional amendment that defined a fertilized egg as a “person,” which effectively banned all abortions, birth control, and couples from conceiving children through in vitro fertilization.

Ohio Voters Emphatically Reject Kasich’s Anti-Union Law
Ohio Democrats, who got absolutely creamed in the 2010 elections, have now won a major victory over Republican Gov. John Kasich — massively winning a referendum to repeal Kasich’s anti-public employee union law.

AP: Maine Voters Say Yes To Same Day Registration
Voters in Maine have approved a ballot measure on allowing same day voter registration. The state had previously moved to require voters register no later than two days before an election. The state Republican Party had run ads urging the issue’s defeat, by suggesting that pro-gay rights groups supported it.

Arizona election results: Russell Pearce ousted, Jerry Lewis wins
The Arizona election results are in: according to the Associated Press, Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce has been ousted by voters and Republican Jerry Lewis has been elected to the state Senate. Senator Pearce was the chief proponent and architect of SB1070, Arizona’s controversial immigration law. According to the text of SB1070, the immigration law was designed “to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.” However, SB1070 generated an intense public outcry from immigration rights activists.

Hmm. It appears that Americans love affair with the Tea Party has run its course. That was quick, almost like the Kardashian wedding. Since the elections of 2010, where the Astroturf Tea Party garnered impressive victories, folks have gotten a chance to actually live under the rule of the Koch brothers and Dick Armey. Farmers in states where severe anti-immigration laws became law hate it; they have no workers to pick the crops. It’s one thing to carp about illegals watching Fox and Friends, but faced with the reality of your livelihood going down the tubes due to racist demagogues is quite another.

John Kaisch, anti-union poster boy for the ALEC and the Koches, watched as voters emphatically put the smack down on his union-busting law, passed earlier this year. Guess Ohio voters didn’t like their collective bargaining rights stripped away to give more goodies to Republican-backed corporations. Didn’t help the Kaisch is a Neanderthal- check out the shirt he wore at a “Building A Better Ohio” meeting. What a yutz.

In their mad passion for power, the GOP around the country has attempted to limit the voting rights of, lets face it, democrats by various means, all supposedly to combat “voter fraud”, a problem that doesn’t exist- unless you think that voters not voting for them is fraudulent. In Maine they even trotted out the gay card in an attempt to sell their message, but even the “gay agenda” wouldn’t stop people from repealing a law meant to deprive people of their civil rights.

Will the Tea Party blow away? No, not entirely. There are a lot of confused, easily manipulated people out there, and as long as Obama is President, they will continue to blame him for all their woes- its just too easy. But in a recent poll, Americans showed where they stood:

Poll shows Occupy Wall Street more popular than Tea Party
A new survey from Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows that Occupy Wall Street, also known as the 99 Percent Movement, now has much more public support than the Tea Party. The PPP poll of 1,000 American adults shows that 27% have a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” view of the Tea Party, compared to 44% who have a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” view. In contrast, 32% have a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” view of Occupy Wall Street, compared to just 35% who have a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” view.

We’ll just have to admit that for about a quarter of our population (and tragically our corporate-owned media), reality doesn’t intrude. They will carry the posters with “Obama=Socialist” and leap to the defense of CEOs over school teachers, voting against their own interests each time. A rational person can’t debate them- their cluelessness is literally in their genes- so don’t even try. But as Tuesday’s voting around the country shows, the honeymoon is over for the Tea Party.

Thank god.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

King made that remark in a speech entitled Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence. And now, 44 years later, we have arrived at a point in our history where we have finally been forced to confront that edifice. The month-long Occupy Wall Street movement has already achieved more than we could hope, simply by raising the point. The point that government has failed us, big business has abandoned us, and that for the majority of people in this world, life is a narrow straightjacket of economic slavery. King was right, of course; we don’t need coins flung at us. Rather, the system where 400 people in the United States have wealth equal to the bottom 150,000,000 needs to change. Change because it is grotesquely unfair. Change because it is unsustainable.

The dynamic of capitalism is relentless growth, an ever-expanding pool of consumers. For a finite resource such as our planet, this is obviously impossible. We have long past reached the point of diminishing returns. No matter how cheaply you can make them, once everyone has a cell phone or a TV, you can’t sell anymore. The robber barons of Wall Street knew this long before the man in the street, that’s why they came up with default credit swaps and derivatives. They cost nothing but fictional money to produce, deliver vast returns when they work- and even more when they fail. Of course, only the 1% get anything from them. They are the ones who reap the rewards, adding more and more fictional money to their coffers, without producing a thing. The only time the entire arrangement is brought to the attention of the rest of us is when their irresponsible gambling has gone woefully sour and we have to bail them out. At this moment instead of watching Bank of America fail and their management team in jail, we’re about to pay up another 75 trillion because their 3 Card Monte scheme in Europe went belly up. No one but the 1% got anything out of this. Not one job (other than hedge fund managers) got created, not one factory was made, no bridges got repaired.

We have no idea how the OWS movement will end up- I suspect it won’t be pretty- but its a beginning. When people take their money out of the behemoth “too big to fail” banks- at the point of getting arrested- and put their savings in a local credit union, its a beginning. When people who can’t occupy Wall Street instead beginning addressed their concerns via Occupy the Boardroom and cause panic among the plutocracy, its a beginning. When the grotesque imbalance in the pay of CEOs versus the workers in this county results in the public shaming of these leeches instead of flattering reach-arounds on CNBC and Fox, its a beginning.

This is a discussion I never thought I would see in our country. When people are awaken to the truth they can do one of two things. They can ignore it and live their days in a comforting fog of unreality, or they become energized to make a change. I believe we are witnessing the dawn of some sort of evolution in our way of thinking, one that looks past short term gains for long term results. One that values school teachers more than the Chairman of the Board. Where people are not just wage slaves and consumers, but equals. I don’t expect this discussion to be done in my lifetime. And I suspect it will get messy- as Gandhi said First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,… and we’ve seen the inklings of that already, with the fraudulent “We Are the 53%” movement- but remember how the quote ends:

Then you win.

It’s taken 44 years for America to “see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring”. How long will it take to find the answer? Who knows. But finally, we’re having the discussion.

If you’re a GOP voter you’ll probably not look back in fondness at the first week of October. Everywhere you turn that demon reality smacks you yet again. First, Chris Christie says, for the 1000 time, that he’s not running for president. Not that he was a viable candidate; for all his “let them eat cake” attitude toward his citizens he shows a little too much sense when it comes to say gun control, immigration and climate change. The GOP, the party that believes science is a debating society certainly isn’t going to flock to a guy who says humans can affect the weather, surely you jest.

Then the hammer fell down on the legions of Facebook/Fox News devotees as Sarah Palin made it official, that she’s not running for president. As one wag said, now she can quit jobs she can’t even get. Not that she could have been elected; she polls in the single digits and outside of a green screen at Fox, she doesn’t exist. But I’m sure we’ve not see the last of her. Five minutes after Obama takes the oath again, she be back on Facebook spewing her own particular insipid vision and hawking whatever TV show or infomercial she has running.

Yes, I said Obama takes the oath again. The eventual GOP candidate is Mitt Romney, and he’s just a pale caricature of Obama himself. The biggest thing against Obama, to the minds of a GOP voter is the Affordable Heath Care act, and it was the brainchild of Mitt when he was Governor of Massachusetts. And I imagine that quip “Corporations are people too” will come back to bite him, as it should. The rest of the woeful crew- Cain, Perry, et al, well, they’re just too insignificant to matter. The only candidate polling better against Obama is “Unknown Republican”, meaning that any of the ones that are actually running are wasting their time. The guy who killed Bin Laden and quotes Ronald Reagan is going to be hard to beat down the stretch, and while the average GOP voter will hold their nose and cast a ballot for Romney, so will the Democratic base-whipped puppy that they are- vote for Obama.

The world has gone into mourning over the death of Apple visionary Steve Jobs, and you know, no matter how much they like their iphones, the attention given to such a liberal giant must be madding to the true believers of the GOP. He made his fortune not by government bailout or derivatives, but by making a product someone wants to buy. Take that, auto industry. The man hand-picked by Jobs to run Apple, Tim Cook? Gay. Take that, hate groups such as American Family and Pat Robertson.

And finally, Occupy Wall Street is growing, with labor unions, nurses and even veterans joining the cause. And don’t think it has nothing to do with you, loyal GOP voter. Sure, Herman Cain can call the protestors “anti-American“, but that’s because he, like his party, are beholden to greed. There is nothing more American than protest, and while I think in the end this drama will end poorly- Major Bloomberg is just itching for the chance to really call out the goon squads and protect his base-hell, you don’t think JP Morgan just gave them 4.5 million for nothing, do ya? No, this probably will not be our Arab Spring- but its a start. As any ’60s hippie can tell you, getting Maced in the face doesn’t make you go home- it makes you angry. And the last thing any GOP voter wants is a bunch of 20-somethings getting riled up- and going to the polls. Nope, the first week in October hasn’t been kind to the GOP, for as much has they try to run from it, reality eventually wins. What did Stephen Colbert say? Oh yeah.

“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Heh heh.

As Williams tried to continue asking his question, the crowd broke into applause, prompting Williams to pause.

“I’ve never struggled with that at all,” he said. “The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which — when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that’s required.”

For the state to commit murder against itself is barbaric, which is why most civilized countries don’t do it. American stands fast with other champions of “justice” such as Iran, North Korea, and Singapore in allowing the state to feed on itself. Our country’s inhumane tendencies can hardly be seen in a more compelling example than the death penalty, and it’s to our shame that it continues. As Helen Prejean said, “The profound moral question is not, “Do they deserve to die?” but “Do we deserve to kill them?”

It’s one thing to allow the state to kill it’s citizens, but it is a truly monstrous lack of humanity to cheer for it. Unfortunately it comes as no surprise that the crowd at the the Reagan Library- a library dedicated to legacy of yet another American tyrant- would stand in applause when Rick Perry’s murderous toll was brought into question. From the Reagan era at least, the GOP has garnered voters by being the “strong” party- of course, its strength comes from attacking the most vulnerable among us. Blacks, gays, women, Muslims- anyone that a typical GOP voter can rise above by squashing their humanity, they’ll do it, and cheer as they do so, apparently. In fact, you could say it’s their only real draw as a party- that someone, somewhere, isn’t worth as much as you. It is both terrifying and sad. Terrifying because of the damage they inflict from it, and sad because it reveals their utter lack of compassion.

Fox “News” Chris Wallace apparently thinks that Brian Williams’ question reveals yet another example of “liberal bias”. Of course there is no such thing in our Murdoch-controlled media universe- it there was, there would be no wars in the Middle East- or against unions, for that matter. Or the death penalty. Liberal bias is a fiction spouted by Fox, Rush et al to allow their Orwellian disinformation to prattle on 24/7. But beyond that, Wallace’s question reveals so clearly the “conservative” mindset:

Chris Wallace appeared on Friday’s Fox and Friends and assailed NBC’s Brian Williams over his question to Rick Perry about whether he ever struggled to sleep at night over the potential innocence of one of his many executed inmates, calling it an example of a “liberal bias.”

Any sane person would “struggle to sleep at night” over the killing of another. At least, you hope they would. The case Williams was referring to was Rick Perry’s apparent murdering of an innocent man. We can expect no humility from Perry- he’s a politician, and a Texas one at that. Forgiveness and big thinking aren’t in his makeup, whereas lying and vengeance is. But apparently just asking the question- do you struggle to sleep at night over potentially killing a innocent man- is liberal. To be troubled by the awesome power of the state to kill it’s own, that’s liberal. To have doubts about the innocence of one you condemned to die, that’s liberal.

If evidence of humanity therefore is liberal…sign me up.

That the United States will no longer function as an empire is plainly evident to anyone who cares to look. Our government is, to put it nicely, “dysfunctional” – the actual word is criminal. It exists solely, at this late hour, to funnel money to the wealthiest 1%. There is no free market – not that we had any at any time in our history anyway. The rich make the rules, and they always get theirs first. The only sops given to “the people” is just enough to keep them off the streets. The powerful care not a whit about whatever your pet issue is- and if they seem to care, just follow the money. Drug legalization? It only exists to create a criminal class and those that get rich off it. And don’t forget the medical community, who of course don’t want marijuana legit- a weed that grows in a ditch, has never resulted in one death? Who would need big pharma, and their willing pill-pushers in the AMA?

Or, perhaps this:

“Almost $43 million from seven charitable groups went toward financing anti-Muslim campaigns, the report said, including proposed state laws to ban judges from considering Islamic laws in U.S. courts, opposition to the Islamic center near Ground Zero, and a general encouragement of anti-Muslim rhetoric in politics and elsewhere.“

Dig down deep enough, and you’ll find, I bet, money to made. As long as our population has someone to blame, they will keep the war machine going, cable news will have good ratings, and moron politicians will get elected spouting gibberish like “Sharia law”, no matter how insane it appears to normal people. And while we bicker about it, the relentless, always hungry for more, damn the little people orgy of greed continues. Unstopping, unregulated, oblivious to everything but itself greed. People on every “side” can prattle on about “entitlements” and austerity in some Randian circle jerk, or on the other, wanting a Prius and a solar panel installed by the government. But as long as our country things of itself as the world’s policeman, nothing will ever change.

And because the United States has the world’s largest economy, its share of world military spending is outsized, accounting for 43 percent of all the military spending on Earth — six times as much as China, which has the world’s second largest military budget and accounts for 7.3 percent of world military spending. Russia accounts for just 3.6 percent.

This is going to require serious rethinking of what we perceive to be our strategic threats and whether the United States can continue to afford to be the world’s peacekeeper.

Of course it can’t- not to mention it shouldn’t. But every rational person knows this, so there isn’t a lot to debate. At some point the money will run out- what do we do then? Will we go the USSR route, with rebellions and food shortages, or will we just fade in prominence ala the British?

For the U.S., declining economic growth and rising military commitments won’t necessarily signal the decline of Pax America unless others become disproportionately richer and stronger. That is why the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia are such threats to American power. And while it is difficult to imagine the U.S. accepting a diminishing status gracefully, it will have to find a destiny in that seam where finance and commerce meet politics and strategy. Post-imperial Britain shows a possible path.

As for me, I cannot wait. All empires fail, and Fox News notwithstanding, ours is not “the greatest glory God ever placed on the earth”. We will fail, one only wonders if it will be graceful or brutal. In any event, it’s past the point of if, but when. So, what do you do? Well, for starters, assume that its already happened, and that we’re five or fifteen years down the road. Do you live off the grid? Do you make most if not all your money in an underground economy or with barter? Do you grow food? There are a thousand things that can be done- investigate. But in a “post-American” world, things will be changed, some rapidly, some incremental. This will require you to adapt and evolve- or face a world unfamiliar.

One man spoke to this. He was Gandhi, and he spoke multitudes when he said:

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Until you understand this – really understand this, deep in your soul, until it is second nature, like breathing, you will be forever out of step. You don’t want war? Then be a beacon of peace, not hostility. You want freedom for all? Then approach everyone as free. Quite simple. Except for actually doing it. It might take you a lifetime to achieve.

If you’re lucky.

Cobb Rep. Bobby Franklin found dead in home

EAST COBB — State Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-east Cobb), who was found dead at his home just before noon on Tuesday at the age of 56, had complained about chest pains on Friday.

I am ashamed to say that my first reaction to reading about the death of Georgia Representative Bobby Franklin wasn’t exactly admirable. Clarence Darrow said it best: “I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” I’ve written about Franklin before here. I wasn’t kind to the man back in January, because he didn’t merit any. As I wrote then, legislators such as Franklin- or Michelle Bachmann- are completely useless when judged solely on the amount of actual work they produce, but as cheerleaders for “the cause” they are stellar. Bachmann mounts a presidential bid based on nothing more than being photogenic and quotable. (Much like our current President…). Only a nation as opulent as ours can afford, as I said then, “The luxury of nonsense”.

Franklin was a theocrat, who stated on his website the following: Representative Franklin has been called “the conscience of the Republican Caucus” because he believes that civil government should return to its biblically and constitutionally defined role. . For that alone he shows himself to be unworthy of holding elected office; there is no “biblically defined role” for government- in fact, its one of the tenets this nation was founded upon. If Bobby Franklin wore a turban and spoke Farsi, then the likes of Herman Cain would run him out of town on a rail, because evidently Franklin believed that there should be no separation of church and state.

But this is not meant to belittle the dead, but rather to share what struck me once I got past my initial reaction to this man’s death. This devoted Christian died alone, with no family near him. He had been divorced for quite a while, and his children were grown. It was only when he didn’t show up for church (after complaining of chest pains) that people began to wonder, and eventually police had to enter the house, finding him dead in bed.

That is sad. Sad for a man who clearly thought his life’s calling was to be an advocate for God via the legislative process. A man who believed us to be a Christian nation, despite all evidence to the contrary- and the law. How a man chooses to spend his life is his business, and if he wants to be a legislative Don Quixote, “forever tilting at windmills” so to speak, unable to achieve anything of note in his chosen profession, well, that was between Franklin and the voters of his district. A district that I lived in briefly and thankfully escaped, feeling trapped by pious pricks lauding their wealth and looking down their noses at anything marginally different than the habits of the swim/tennis communities that sprawl across this part of metro Atlanta. They kept electing this guy, year after year since 1996, and got little to nothing for it. He passed no real legislation, instead spending his time with attaching anti-abortion riders to other unrelated bills, attempting to return Georgia to the gold standard, and introducing legislation to change the language of rape cases from “victim” to “accuser”. Rather unchristian behavior, it seems to me, but since I’m not one, I can’t really judge his faith except in comparison to others. Folks such as Hosea Williams, legislator and minister who fed thousands each year at a massive Thanksgiving buffet, or Jimmy Carter, who builds shelter for the homeless.

Franklin, as far as I can determine, did nothing such as this. He devoted his life to being, essentially, an easily dismissed buffoon known more for idiotic- and unconstitutional, don’t forget- attempts at lawmaking, instead of using his faith and public office to actually do something, anything for those in need. No, Bobby Franklin was more comfortable with the judgmental aspect of faith, not the charitable. He was much like the former co-worker who I watched for three days during the horror of Katrina attempt to get a semi full of Gideon bibles to New Orleans. When I finally could take no more and asked why didn’t he try to get a truck full of say, WATER to those poor people, he was deeply offended and replied “People need bibles too!”. Not as much as they need food and clean clothes, you self-serving shithead. I imagine Franklin would have sided with my Gideon co-worker, unfortunately.

The Catholics say “Faith without works is dead.” And it died alone in an empty house, after achieving what, exactly? Now that is sad.

After the state of New York came to its senses and allowed its gay citizens to actually have some of the rights that the rest of their populous enjoyed, the tiresome, predictable bigots crawled to the surface, stepping over each other in a mad dash to see who could be the biggest hater, fuming over everything from the lights on the Empire State Building to some bizarre ramble about plugs in a socket from that odious cretin and child abuse supporter Bill Donahue. And of course, right on queue comes the whackadoo Pat Robertson, fuming that “There isn’t one single civilization that has openly embraced homosexuality that has survived,”.

Now, grown ups understand that all such hateful rhetoric is nonsense, of course. Not all of us require a pretend Sky Daddy to tell us how to live, we take responsibility for our own lives and decisions. All of this talk about gay marriage from fundamentalists is mainly a recruiting tool. They spewed the same hate before blacks or women got to vote, and before interracial marriage. They were wrong then, they are wrong now, and until our society stops allowing a book of mythology- written by men for a political purpose- to have any bearing on how reality in this nation (and world) operates, then we’ll constantly be subject to hate speech and bigotry wrapped in the FSM sweater.

So, what is destroying society? Two words: Greed and envy.

One need not look far to see the effects of greed in today’s America. The rich keep getting richer, sitting on more and more of our nations wealth, sheltering it safe from the clutches of the state, waiting on another “tax holiday” to return their money back to the US, where they can continue to off-shore jobs and underfund the communities in which they operate. They hire the lobbyists who write the laws that a bought and paid for Congress enacts- its a tidy circle of greed that enriches a tiny sliver of our population at the expense of, well, everyone else. And since our mainstream media is consolidated into so few players, we get treated to spurious “reporting” based on greed, blathered up from Cato and Heritage Foundation Randian stooges, whose motto can be summed up as “I got mine, fuck you.” Societies have collapsed because of greed- Greece at this very moment, anyone?

Which brings us to envy. Some people can accept that they are free, some people can’t. Some people do things- get a tattoo, watch pornography, smoke pot- because it feels good. No one else on earth is impacted by these decisions, just as the tattooed pot smoker isn’t impacted in the least if their next door neighbor goes to church twice a week and watches American Idol. Some folks want to marry, or kiss, or hump someone of their own gender. They do so because it feels natural- because it is natural, to them. And somewhere somebody is hating them for it.

Why? Envy. Call it religious indoctrination, or some faint echoes of a Calvinistic past, but to a strata of our population, people doing something simply because it feels good, with no other benefit beyond that- is by nature wrong. Because they can’t imagine taking the risks of say, falling in love with the “wrong person” or smoking a joint, or watching Hustler videos- because they are afraid- they envy those who can. By being unable to free themselves, they instead order that the “pursuit of happiness” is a privilege to be meted out by decree. Because they are too afraid to actually use the gifts given them at birth to make a better place for themselves in the world, they allow their fear to ruin those who feel no such restraints. My life was severely impacted by thus such people, who at some point made my father so ashamed of his sexuality that he never mentioned it to me, even as he died of AIDS. His repression of himself to his family brought a tangible, destructive element to all our lives- something the pious claim will happen to them, if Adam and Steve can wed. It’s a lie. It’s a lie brought about by fear manifested in envy, covered in fairy tales and sadly applauded by too many who should know better.

If our society is to evolve- perhaps even to survive at all- it will take us confronting these notions of greed and envy, denouncing them, and moving past them into a freer, more balanced place. Will we get there, before our infrastructure crumbles and our children starve as the Steve Jobs and General Electrics horde their pennies? Will our national debate revolve around the envious, fearful minority restricting the rights of gays and women because they are too afraid of freedom for themselves? Can we move ahead, past envy and greed to something better, or remain stuck in pointless debates about things that matter not, while we ignore our real problems?

Only time- and not hateful slime like Pat Robertson- will tell.

Did you know- and if you rely upon our pathetic national media, you most likely didn’t- that there is a nation that actually said, in essence, hell no we’re not paying off the banks? That actually pointed fingers at the thieves and arrested them? That marched in the streets until they re-wrote their constitution?

Oh, to be Iceland.

Pressenza Reikjavik, 3/28/11 Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction.

In this country, the banks elect our leaders. They elect the President, Congress, anywhere that there is a human near a government checkbook, they funnel cash to them. In return for being funded via usury and unregulated financial “devices”, our ruling class keeps the elites in their gated communities safe from the restless rabble, safe from even the most modest of regulatory agencies, and bail them out when they go bust at the craps table…I mean Wall Street. Our nation limps along in endless recession, but somehow, corporate profits are surging, the stock market looks pink, and the rich keep getting richer.

Now, Iceland is a vastly smaller nation than America, of course. Yet somehow they manage universal healthcare, legalized gay marriage, and generate nearly all their energy from renewable sources. They clearly have a will that is either not evident in this country- or more likely, squashed by our national discourse of nonsense. Now, Iceland has its share of nonsensical beliefs as well, such as the folks there who still believe in elves. However, probably not in as large numbers as your fellow citizens who believe in angels.

America of course will never become the common-sense nirvana that is Iceland- we’re too big, for one. And dim-witted, for another. But we can start down the path with a few simple steps.

First, never again vote for a candidate who takes contributions from the banking and energy industries. Never. They are all, top to bottom, crooks. Its just the nature of the system. Their interests are not, and never have been, yours.

Second, stop the endless- and corporately funded fraudulent- debate over climate change. The science is against you, so take your “The Greens only want to kill capitalism!” gibberish and go put sandbags around the nuke plant in North Dakota. You know, something useful.

Finally, everywhere you go, teach people to ignore our fascist, corporate media. Turn off Fox, CNN, all of them, anywhere you find them. Read independent media. Read about the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, and imagine such a thing in this country.

Oh, to be Iceland.

Republicans Seek Specifics From FCC on Fairness Doctrine Departure

Top House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans thanked FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski Wednesday for saying he planned to strike the Fairness Doctrine from the Code of Federal Regulations, but said they wanted more info on when and how he was going to do that, as well as on other regs that could be ripe for repeal.

The doctrine required TV stations to air controversial issues of public importance and seek out opposing viewpoints. Also still on the books are corollaries to the doctrine providing for free response time for personal attacks and providing equal time for other candidates if a station endorsed a candidate in an editorial. The corollaries were repealed by the FCC in 2000 but the legislators want those deep-sixed as well, which Genachowski said he expected would happen.

Now, right off the bat, let me say I find the Fairness Doctrine- which is basically just the state telling us what can or cannot be said in public- to be profoundly unconstitutional. So before my libertarian friends heads explode, I have no desire to see it return, purely on constitutional grounds.

I only wish the right felt the same way. See, conservatives have no problem limiting free speech, be it that of a doctor in Florida asking about guns in the home to new parents, or potential protesters at their debates, but the notion that their ability to spew nonsense 24/7 on cable news without debate could be challenged by an alternative viewpoint, well, that’s just a bridge too far for these fair weather defenders of freedom.

To some, this would appear to be yet another example of GOP hypocrisy in action, and to some extent it is. But beyond that, and far more chilling, is what this disconnect really points to- the actual motivation behind all right wing actions for at least the last thirty years- winning. The right has adopted Lombardi’s “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” as their motto, and its their guiding principle on everything. Free speech requires debate- it can’t be called “free speech” if only one side gets to talk- and in the process of debating someone, you are forced to not only discuss their side of an issue, you’re forced to defend your own.

And therein lies the rub. I recently read Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and while I had been aware of the notion before, his 1964 examination of the topic really drove the point home, that rather than being a by-product of conservative belief systems, it was the underlying foundation of them all. Conservatives tend to be more of the “true believer” type than liberals; its been this way since church leaders railed against education in our early days, because they knew that an inquiring mind may well one day discover fault in their previously held notions and abandon them, thus diminishing the power of the church, or the state- or the GOP. Much of the true believer mentality is rooted in religious faith, and since the bedrock tenet of faith- “a belief in things unseen”- means it cannot be proven, its understandable that any group vested in this belief would not welcome debate, for it would ultimately lose. This is the reason the right fears the Fairness Doctrine- not out of some liberty loving Constitutional fervor, but rather the fear that honest open debate would leave them on the losing side, and that would mean that not only their ideas, but they themselves would be forced to change, and for many, that is a terrifying notion. A popular bumper sticker states “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it”. That is the belief system of a closed mind, fearful of debate.

And when the true believers are forced to defend their beliefs and lose, then suddenly debate is vital. Take the fraudulent “teach the controversy” movement among creationists. There is no debate over evolution, the science of the issue has been repeatedly tested, thousands of times. And the faithful know this, it is why they have to rely on the power of the state to force people to hear their erroneous notion of the origins of life. Same with climate change, peak oil, WMDs, and the “choice” of homosexuality. These topics have been debated, tested, and conclusions reached. Just because a small, yet very vocal minority of people don’t happen to like the answers, doesn’t mean the debate is still open- it just means their viewpoint, after examination, was found to be false.

So when Rush Limbaugh begins yet another harangue about the perils of liberals forcing the Fairness Doctrine back into law- as he sees it, a part of a master plan to kill conservative speech- take it for what it is. It’s just fear of being shown to be wrong. As the saying goes, “Any belief worth having must survive doubt”. So the next time you hear some right wing blowhard clutching their prayer beads and bemoaning “fairness”, understand its just fear talking, and take pity on them. Because to live your life by principles and beliefs you know in your heart you cannot defend, that must be a scary life indeed.