America the Beautiful, another view

People are sometimes bewildered or at least don’t understand why I believe or write what I do. That people, some friends and family, are so bewildered does not surprise me. It does depress me.

Many people today, young and old, educated and not, are more interested in reality TV and texting than in what is going on all around them. If you beg to differ---you believe otherwise of yourself and/or of others---you consider yourself and others very aware---and you are---then maybe I’m the one who should be bewildered.

How can anyone be aware of the egregiously unfair and unlawful practices going on all around us and not be concerned even if you see it from a different frame.

Over the past week I’ve read and listened to others equally passionate about sharing what they have uncovered about things public that lead to public policy. Most of it hardly inspires trust. It does justify apprehension.

Examples serve to illustrate the point. There are so many. Arizona’s immigration policies, the policy of this republic supporting Israel’s brutal treatment of Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular, our leaders and mainstream’s insistence that we are a democracy---these are but a few.

The following article is unlikely to see the light of day in the mainstream media. It makes it alarmingly obvious just how egregious Israel’s policies are not to mention that the four corporations that own every major radio station, television station and newspaper in America today control what we see and hear.

In the mid 1980’s Israel offered nuclear weapons to the oppressive, racist apartheid foisting (white) South Africans. When a people (Israelis) who daily complain that everyone is out to get them are willing to sell nukes to racists I’m concerned. Nukes for anyone but Muslims?

Israeli 'nuclear offer' to S Africa
The documents provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The internet is considred by many one of the most---pardon the expression---“democratizing” forces of our times. So why is it that if we are the “democracy” we were never intended to be there are so many rich and powerful who seek only to undermine it?

Internet Debate: Preserving User Parity
Should the Internet be divided into fast and slow lanes? That's the question at the heart of the debate over "network neutrality." Broadband providers have clashed with Internet and software companies, who are concerned that giving some users preferential treatment for a price effectively shuts out competition.

Should anyone---especially those who trample the very rights they are paid to protect---be above the law?

Ex-Chicago Police Officer On Trial For Torture


California, a bellweather state, is presently the battleground for the very essence of our republic.

Corporate Bucks Behind 'Citizens' Initiatives In Calif.

The recent decision by the Supremes to allow corporations to fund almost any political ad they desire is playing out in the “down-on-its-luck” state of California.

In the Eureka state ballot initiatives are a way of life. Voters have used them to change everything from “taxes to medical marijuana to raising chickens.” The concern is that now well-heeled corporations are funding the “movements.”

“Take Proposition 16, for example. The initiative, which proponents call the "Taxpayer's Right to Vote Act," would require a city or county that wants to start a municipal utility or expand an existing one to get approval from two-thirds of its voters. The backer of all this extra democracy is Pacific Gas and Electric, California's largest private, for-profit electric company.

"Prop 16 puts the power back in the hands of the people," says Robin Swanson, spokeswoman for the "Yes on 16" campaign. Pacific Gas and Electric, she says, isn't afraid of competition from publicly owned power providers.

"If our opponents can provide cheaper, greener, better electric service, then they shouldn't be afraid to go to the people and sell it to them," she says.

Except those municipal power providers are forbidden by law from spending a dime on electioneering. PG&E, on the other hand, has already put about $44 million into the campaign for Proposition 16.”

Demcracy! Right.

Meanwhile in Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way and bastion of backward thinking have re-written history in their image.

One analysis is that “voter apathy” was behind the success of the well-funded religiosities who have now foisted their worldview on the unsuspecting---too busy watching reality TV and texting crowd. I disagree.

Consider that apathy presupposes and requires knowledge of the problem and no desire, interest or enthusiasm to do anything about it.

In the Lone Star state people with the most reason to do something about it are products of the system put in place by the very people now abusing it, racist religiosities.

Products of that system are unlikely to have awareness of the issue. Products of dysfunctional cultures are unaware they are. Even those who are cognitively capable are products of that system and many if not most are victims of the wholly trinity (government, big business and organized religion), to boot.

Put another way, “the apple never falls far from the tree.” A person cannot teach what they do not know.

Textbook decision stems from apathy

Too Black for School?

How race skews school discipline in Texas.

Of those who insist we are a “democracy” I ask where is the “democracy” in any of these headlines?

Consider this, in the beginning 274 years ago, our senate was created in the image of the British House of (pardon the expression) Lords. The role of senators was to be if you are benevolent minded a check and balance on the folks’ house of representatives and advisors to the president.

Senators were to be elected by state legislators not the folk. By the way, then only property owning white men over the age of 21 could vote.

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s in the City of San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas minorities, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans were not served at the counter of then department store, Joskes.

Last year a high school in the state of Mississippi held its first ever “integrated” prom---because an African-American actor paid for it.

Early this year a judge in the south retired rather than perform an interracial marriage ceremony.

Today, gays, homosexuals, cannot openly serve in the military of this republic. Just three generations ago (1945) African-Americans could be in the military just not with the white guys.

Does that sound like a democracy to you?

The efforts of the malintended to assert their gosh-awful brand of worldview is never-ending---so must my one indiviudal vigilance and efforts to counter them.

More:  George Carlin - Saving the Planet

America the Beautiful, another view