Both Sides Now

"Bows and Flows of Angel Hair

And Ice Cream Castles in the Air

And Feathered Canyons Everywhere

I've looked at Clouds that Way"

---Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell

Dubya got trashed by his own party for trying to pass immigration reform--John McCain (R-AZ) was one of the prime movers for this reform. The present representatives of the people in WaWa, District of Corruption, refuse to move on immigration reform. John McCain, 2010 version, blames the Obama administration for Arizona's new " got your papers?" law targeting immigrants even thought profiling is still illegal(?!?!?!?). Lindsey Graham, R-SC and also a former proponent of immigration reform, now links any progress on this issue to the financial reform bill congress is also working on. Gotta wonder about these guys we elected who can't work on two critical issues at the same time. Gotta wonder how many sides of the same issue any one senator can be---------"Both Sides Now" may not be enough.............

It's criminal that this law passed and equally criminal that rather than solving the problem of immigration at the federal level, which is where it should be addressed, this issue and the immoral law it has engendered has become a political football and a game of finger-pointing is the best our high-priced senators and representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, can do!!!

Music

My daughter recently had a facebook post( "Escape Club's "I'll be there" stops me in my tracks whatever I may be doing and I could cry in a second. What is your favorite, meaningful song like that?") about a song that was very meaningful to her. Our friend fabpeng is doing a music series on his blog. So, not to be left out, here's a few songs with some special meaning for us-----from some raunch by the Stones to the wonderful images of John Prine and our favorite version of the national anthem from Woodstock Sunday AM----------even the Bob Marley song that helped inspire the name of this blog..............

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.............

"Right"-eous & Christian?????

Lately I've rediscovered an author that had a great effect on me in college, lo those many years ago. I saw a couple of references in articles I'd read, probably in The Atlantic, and I proceeded to find some of his writings. I refer to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit (!?!?!?) theologian and a paleontologist who was on the team that classified Peking Man. One of his quotes appears on the header of this blog.

Now I am not very religious. If asked, I usually respond R.C.L. (Roman Catholic Lapsed). So how do I reconcile having this Jesuit as an influence? Well, Teilhard is logical. He's a scientist. While he tends to a Christian interpretation of phenomena, he maintains his analytical bent. His works aren't filled with "God" but rather man's search for the "Unity." I might take some issue with his assertion that mankind is the apogee of evolution but I do agree with his idea of continued mental and spiritual evolution to join the noosphere.

Where we presently reside is very ostentatiously "Christian." There is an evangelical mega-church just a few blocks north of us and a Baptist mega-church four blocks to the south. Most of the citizens in this city are self-avowed Christians. "God bless" is almost as dominant a form of greeting as "hello" or "good-bye." The former mayor had an "important" conference on a constitutional issue recently---President Obama's speech to school children. This is "Nobama" land, for sure. Why he's a socialist!!!

And why are these Christians so afraid of socialism? Likely because they have forgotten to read the New Testament. This is "eye for an eye" and "homosexuality is abomination" land. Right out of Leviticus and the Books of the Old Testament. We don't hear about "turn[ing] the other cheek", "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", or "love thy neighbor as thyself". Much less the sharing of food and lodging in the Christian community described in Acts or the Epistles of St. Paul. I guess I'm saying I don't see a lot of Christianity being practiced by today's Christians.

God doesn't have a flowing white beard---that's an anthropomorphism, endowing human traits on the deity to make him "understandable" to humankind. The problem is we've overdone this. I can accept a deity as the entity that fired off the Big Bang, the energy that started the universe spinning and expanding. But I cannot accept racism and discrimination being excused as Christians following their Master. These people are following the Jewish faith with the "vengeful God" and the Pharisees. As I recall, these same were cast out of the Temple and the Messiah was to bring a new order---"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light."

Maybe our God-fearing "right"-eous people need to revisit the teachings of the Christ. Start with the Sermon on the Mount. And how socialistic is it to multiply loaves and fishes so the poor might have a meal? Thanks, I'll stick with Teilhard and his more realistic view of the Unity.

BANG

"There are several versions of the text of the Second Amendment, each with slight capitalization and punctuation differences, found in the official documents surrounding the adoption of the Bill of Rights.^[4] One such version was passed by the Congress, which reads:^[5]

“

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

”

Another version is found in the copies distributed to the states, and then ratified by them, which had this capitalization and punctuation:^[6]

“	A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Wikipedia

Now, the last week has had a Second Amendment rally and the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. One might think the two events were umbilically connected. We find it sad that on the issue of gun control no-one will move to the middle ground.

There is nothing wrong with firearms. My father had a rifle and taught us to shoot it, "hunting" crows at the town dump. I wish I'd learned to hunt---I love venison, elk, and moose meat. However I don't think these meats would be quite so tasty if one had to pick shell fragments from an automatic weapon out of the carcasses before butchering........

Automatic weapons were invented for one purpose---warfare. Machine guns and automatic repeating weapons are used by the military----soldiers tasked to defend their country. They have no business in the hands of children, drug dealers, or ordinary citizens. Just think about the Mexican drug wars currently being contested---the US is the marketplace, ergo the profit center for the cartels. It also serves as the source for their weaponry because of our lack of control over the purchase of automatic weapons. What a grisly balance of trade---import the drugs, export the guns!!! The case could be made that Mexico's travails are the fault of the US!!!!

And no matter how I read the two versions of the Second Amendment I cannot see any justification in them for the sale to the public of automatic weapons. I know the NRA interpretation is that any restriction on gun ownership is an infringement and the liberal freaks say the Amendment applies only to militia being armed. Somewhere in the middle is the answer---automatic weapons for the militia (which at the time of the framing of the Constitution was the equivalent of the present day National Guard, not the "militia" groups so en vogue along the border and among the ultra-right secessionists) and guns that are suitable for hunting or sport-shooting for the masses. This won't end the black market in AK-47s and Kalashnikovs but it might lessen their availability a bit more than the lack of regulation presently in practice. And the NRA people and hunters can still have their "right to bear arms." As long as we stop short of arming the bears............or should we????

Back to the Future????

We've long thought that it takes extremes to move the mass. In the 60's the tension between groups like the John Birch Society and the Students for a Democratic Society polarized debate about the war in Viet Nam and some social issues. This dichotomy of ideas influenced the end of the war and the domestic policies of LBJ--the Great Society which incorporated civil rights and Medicare into our society. The mass in the middle needs the radical fringes to motivate it.

But what happens when those radicals become the voice of the people in a republic like ours?? What outcomes can be expected when the radical fringe assumes control?? We poked a little fun at the Hutaree Militia but the underlying threats posed by religious cults and right wing domestic terrorists is palpable. Remember Jonestown and Timothy McVeigh. A conservative group called Guardians of the Free Republics is under investigation for sending threatening letters to governors.

Most of these groups, and others in the conservative movement, rail against the growth of so-called big government. The latest documents from the Guardians talks about returning to the pre-1933 form of government. Let's see, wouldn't that be a return to the Great Depression??? Wonder if they'd provide dime a gallon gas and $.07 loaves of bread as well. Somehow we believe the circumstances of the world economy wouldn't permit that, nor would people work for the same wages. The poverty threshold in 2008 was higher than the average wage in 1932!!

The federal government grew with jobs programs, Social Security, and other innovations to get the country out of an economic meltdown in the period from 1932-1934. (In truth, full recovery and full employment came about because of World War II.) But the government interventions in the '30s moved the economy in the correct direction. The recent economic slowdown was exacerbated by the shrinking of government regulation since the 1990s. Wasn't the Republican Party, the conservatives led by Newt Gingrich and George W Bush in charge of the economy and government then? Isn't the lesson of history that less government intervention in the economy a recipe for disaster---see the history for 1929 and 2007 for examples.

So let the tea-partiers continue their tea-bagging and let Rush bombast to his heart's content. But don't for a minute believe them----we would NOT be better of if we revisited 1932!!!!!

Rebels and Rapture

We are concerned about this new story from Michigan. Seems there's a group of Christian militia that plotted to kill policemen to foment revolution and prepare for the second coming of the Savior. End of Days, the Rapture, Armageddon, Book of the Apocalypse (now called Revelations).

Just a couple of questions. First, other than the moneychangers in the Temple, when did Jesus advocate violent overthrow of the government?? Is this about that black Muslim non-resident we elected president?? Post-racial society?? Dream on.........

Next, where in hell did they dream up the name "Hutaree Militia"????? Did they mean Hatari, the 1962 movie starring John Wayne about hunting wild animals in Africa?? I doubt these people had the intelligence for that word-play---Obama, black, father from Kenya, spearchucker, anti-Christ, any other racial cliches you might favor... No, more likely "Hutaree" is a perversion of Mutara, as in Mutara Nebula from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. That nebula is probably millions of parsecs closer to earth and reality than these wackos are!!!!!!!

Sorry if any words or phrases in this blog post offend anyone but in our opinion these are exactly how we interpret the intentions of groups like this, insofar as we can conceive of their thoughts.

Dead Horses

There's nothing to be gained in beating a dead horse, goes the old saw. So why do the conservatives continue to do so?? Their present dead horse is the growth of government as exemplified by "Obamacare." Funny, when Medicare/Medicaid was enacted I don't remember cries of foreboding about "Johnsoncare." Was it because we were not as clever then? Doubtful. Most likely it was because we were more civil then, at least in our domestic policy discussions. But I digress....

This morning I happened to catch Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind,) on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. Mr Pence is a conservative Republican and a winner of Conservative Man of the Year from the organization Human Rights. After the usual frothing about how health care reform as presently constituted will be a crushing blow to our economic recovery, Mt. Pence would NOT name any other government program than "Obamacare" that he would cut to help reduce spending at the federal level and the trillion-dollar deficit. This despite several instances of encouragement by the show' s panelist Mike Barnicle. Mr. Pence's stand is so typical of the conservative Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place---the Iraq War, the debacle named Afghanistan, the collapse of the financial system in 2007------the legacy of George W Bush and the Republican controlled congress (until 2006). And now it's Barack Obama's health care reform that is plunging us into the abyss???? I think not. I agree with David Frum---time for the conservatives to work within the system rather than merely being perceived as obstructionist if they want to make any headway in the November mid-term elections.

So go to the tea parties, continue the "I'm NRA and I vote", and the "NObama" bumper sticker tirades. On with the racial epithets and gender preference slurs, on Rush, on Sean, on Glenn, on over the top screaming, and on to defeat with your beaten dead horse in November.