Jharrin4's Blog

Allow me to reflect on the latest Hollywood recreation of our country’s military campaigns in the post-911 world. By now, there have been more than a few films that take “actual events” of either the Afghan or Iraq deployments of our soldiers and thus commercialize such historical events. About a year ago, Lone Survivor was on its way to making $125 million at the box office. The movie, starring Mark Wahlberg, dramatized the real war ordeal of four Seals who were sent to “take out a high value, Afghan, target”. The assignment became a classic case of a military cluster fuck (or FUBAR or SNAFU, t0 invoke other service-related snarky jargon). Only one survivor of the original unit of 14 Seals lived to attest to the cruel reality of the well-known adage “war is hell”.

Having watched the movie, I gave props to its apparent ethos of what all soldiers in combat situation embrace, no matter how a mission unfolds: you’re never out of the fight and you cover one another’s back. To the bitter, deadly, end, if need be. Of course, the potential for courage and sacrifice cannot be overtly measured in any of us, whether the fight is in military battle or some civilian, personal struggle involving family, friends or a random encounter with fickle fate on one street or another. War, however, is seemingly the ultimate crucible that can elicit incredibly heroic and selfless sacrifice, the kind that is awarded with metals and formal, ceremonial praise from Generals to the Commander-in-Chief.

As it should be.

Now, a year after Lone Survivor comes American Sniper, with Bradley Cooper portraying another actual U.S. soldier, this time in Iraq. This dramatization of real events involves the sniper who amassed the highest kill count of enemy combatants over four tours in the Iraq conflict. The theme is exactly the same as the Afghan-based tale regarding how much one man, somehow, some way, through grit and guts and determination becomes the stuff of legend.

Interestingly, American Sniper is quite the commercial force, having made over $300 million and counting in box office receipts. Apparently, enough time has passed so that both Afghanistan and Iraq military deployments have now become sublimated in the public’s consciousness. In my estimation, there’s little widespread acceptance or rejection of these military incursions at this point. Each exists as virtual “white noise” in the cacophony of day-to-day life. Let’s face it, most American families have no skin in the game. That is, the vast majority of the American public isn’t directly related to anyone fighting and dying in Afghanistan or once again, in Iraq. It’s those volunteers doing the bidding of the Pentagon.. Know any of them?

My guess is the popularity of these aforementioned war movies derives from the  “based on unbelievable actual events” preface that makes for people wanting to know: what happened? Why? How? Who?  I suppose,  whether a real case study or penned from the imagination of a screenwriter, it’s essentially an “action” movie, full of human drama. Action flicks often sell tickets. And war movies, from any generation, are pretty much about the action.

I grew up with war movies, mostly ones having to do with the Second World War. My father and uncle served during that global game changer of a conflict, though as a 10-year-old or so I had no idea how much the cinematic, dramatized bravery, sacrifice, the “never quit…cover your buddies’ backs” was essential to victory in the fight against fighting Germany and Japan. What I know now that I didn’t know then was that it truly, desperately, was a war to save the world from real evil forces determined to dominate, subjugate and impose their will on the rest of mankind. Millions upon millions of men and women served during the U.S.’s efforts in that war. Tens of millions would die, world-wide. Any war since involving American troops completely pales in comparison as far as fighting to save a way of life.

Shortly after high school I was drafted into the military, Vietnam-era. I was not sent over (I was in the medical corps, and two scheduled deployments were rescinded. Fate?). Regardless, I felt a strong bond with those who served alongside me in the States, and great respect for those who had been in combat . Working as a surgery tech, I saw the human carnage close-up, under bright surgical lamps as doctors tried to patch the wounded back together.  It was surreal, in a way, however, as I never, not for a second, felt the invasion of Vietnam had the slightest comparative gravity and urgency of World War Two. This “war” in Southeast Asia, always had a trumped up feeling about it. Why would the United States have to fight a country barely the size of California? Really? Vietnam was a serious threat to U.S. security, to the American way of life? What was I missing? And please don’t say my “patriotism”!

In hindsight, ever since that non-voluntary service to save the world from godless Vietnamese Communism, I’ve felt I can assess a real national threat from cynical political, manipulative posturing in using our armed forces. Vietnam was fought, I think it’s safe to say by now, for reasons having virtually nothing to do with our national security. Just check the aftermath: the U.S. bailed out of Vietnam after 10 years and losing nearly 59,000 troops, leaving North Vietnam the de facto “victors”.  Somehow, “to the victor goes the spoils” never manifested itself, as North Vietnam got South Vietnam but gained no control whatsoever over life in the U.S. of A. It thus begs the question: why was it fought in the first place? Should there not be something to lose that motivates fighting to win?

It’s great that generation after generation of young Americans are ready to step up and and answer a call to duty. But it’s an all volunteer military now, and the real combat experiences these volunteers have endured, while as admirable any of those in the Second World War, seemingly need not ever to have been fought in the first place. Apparently, there was never a valid reason for putting any of these soldiers in harm’s way. Again, what was the actual threat? Their sacrifices, while worth praising, of course, weren’t necessary, not really. Unless having more cinematic action narratives and military ceremonies can be said to represent their call to duty.

Unfortunately unlike the video game that uses Call of Duty as its title, our real-life soldiers aren’t computer programs. They are human beings who actually do get blown up, shot apart and often die. When that happens, their sacrifice should connote truly protecting our country from mortal dangers, not as pawns on a political chessboard, or as part of a bait-and-switch propaganda gambit; military casualties deserve a greater legacy than box office totals gained from exploiting their suffering, or video game kill-zone fantasies, or an excuse for sporting event “feel good”  military fly-overs.

It’s colder than a well digger’s ass in Siberia here in Chicagoland on this January 8th. Well, I suppose maybe colder still, if digging that well in the arctic hinterlands. No, wait. Climate change changes everything, including Alaska not having a single day of below zero temps for over a year now. Not a single night? Anywhere in Alaska? For a year and counting? In the meantime it’s been something between -1 and -10 around the city that Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down.  Go figure. Wait, don’t bother. Naomi Klein already has, in her latest research that produced the book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate. I’m barely into reading it and she’s got me wondering if there’s any point in digging wells any longer. What’s the point? Looking for more water? There’s going to be plenty more of it, not underground but pouring over once dry lands and erasing existing coastlines, thanks to the ice sheets in the arctic areas melting and lifting the sea levels. Hogwash? Well, climate deniers, Naomi has about a thousand citations, so look them up and discredit them–if you can (and bet you can’t). The hard-core, free-market capitalists have, of course, attacked her assertions (backed by science, so again…). Honestly, I wish climate change was a hoax (as one GOP senator, among several such climate deniers, has  asserted in front of congress); but I believe in science and, woe is us, because science says the climate is changing, and not for the better. According to many of the climate researchers Klein quotes in her book, it’s very likely we have passed a point of no return already. Yikes! Bad news for the tikes! They may live to see some very crazy, all too frequent extreme climate events in the decades to come. Stock up on breathing masks and SPF 900, you kids out there.

For this aging Boomer, I’ve witnessed, occasionally first hand and more and more through media coverage, some terrible weather events, natural disasters, and understand the cautionary tales inherent in climate science reports for too long already.

Like I said, I’m not too far into the book, and likely Ms.Klein addresses the situation as one that may be beyond a breaking point, but that the end game can be stalled, maybe mitigated enough to…what? Give a few coming generations some sense of the problem at least being (finally) addressed? Like I said, I’d like to think it’s possible we’re not off that cliff already. But buying into the science-bashing–nothing to see here–mentality assures that if we have not yet reached a tipping point, then certainly we will before much longer. There is, however, literally no down side to taking the issue seriously and acting on it as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, there’s been a recent, dire development…

… It’s January, and just this week a storm hit Washington, D.C. No, not a weather event. It’s political. That is, the new Congress has been brought into session. Many newbies have been sworn in, virtually all Republican.  And in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not the GOP’s modus operandi to thwart that good ol’ free market, laissez-faire, economic model. Mein Gotts! (Hey, I’m tri-lingual!) we are so NOT going to address science’s concerns about the climate. Now that the GOP controls all of the political sausage-making, get ready for some really high fat, calorie-laden, artificially flavored but still smelly links to come off the sinister conveyor belt of legislation. On the first day in session, the republicans started their usual attacks on social programs. There’s at least two years of assured gridlock coming, unless President Obama retains his penchant for capitulation with this cynical bunch. Brush off that veto pen, sir!

So, thanks again, disaffected mid-term voters and non-voters of America. You made this coming shit storm of let-them-eat-cake governing possible. And it was so predictable, like the weather used to be. I just saw a snarky quote somewhere that sums up that mid-term election of empty suits and dangerous minds:  there are two kinds of republicans; multi-millionaires and fools. Climate issues, jobs, education, health care and other actual matters for the average John and Jane Doe will be addressed in accordance to the right-wing ideology of profit over people. Including mother, as in Mother Nature. Never underestimate the stupidity of this uninformed, gullible, lazy public.

Is that too harsh an assertion? Well, then explain how the party that ran the show during the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, that started a war that was based on lies, and that was in charge in the lead-up to the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression is put back at the controls? Okay, the democrats are complicit and/or inept, but still… In the meantime, Naomi Klein, and other  voices of reason can yell all they want. Who will listen to them anyway? People will be too busy wondering about how, like the climate, their lives have been getting nothing but worse lately. The answer awaits them each time they confront a mirror.

Caveat emptor. It’s frosty out there, and the weather is only partly to blame.

The Allied armies of WWII were the last instance of actual global “freedom fighters” who were sent on missions with potential to the victors go the spoils endgames, as asserted in my last blog entry. For proof, one needs to simply revisit the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Gulf I and Gulf II, and the now 13 year-old Afghan invasion that has no apparent upside or any end in sight, while our troops fight on and on to protect…what? whom?

So, thanks again, all vets, but especially those that fought the fight that had SPOILS on the line. I lamented that these brave and selfless soldiers, all of whom had to serve from the day they were either drafted or enlisted, until the final outcome (if they live to see that victory), truly fought for our freedoms. Some served for the entire time the U.S. was fighting Germany and Japan (and Italy, briefly). Late 1941 to late 1945.

They saved our country for Tea Bagger idiots to bamboozle the brain-dead electorate. They saved it so corporations could become our proxy government. But also…

…they preserved it for our modern-day DOORBUSTER!, Thanksgiving day, hurry in and get a 40″ flat screen for just $120! sales appetizers. Consume and be happy! And bust down doors these mall rat zombies do. By morning of “Black Friday” there are the inevitable reports (and videos) of brawls breaking out as shoppers fight fiercely over X-boxes, Playstations, laptops, tablets, 1080 “smart” t.v.’s or even non-digitzed apparel, appliances, baubles, bangles and bright shining beads.

Yep. Those troopers who slogged through combat from Battle of the Bulge to D-Day to Iwo-Jima made it possible for our hyper-commercialized, now somehow fused together Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas season to exist in all its excessive, greedy, manipulative glory.

Praise the lord, and where’s my Platinum, Gold and Kryptonite credit cards? Burp! Great stuffing, ma. Now to kick ass for that iPhone going for just fifty-nine cents! Strap it on! I’m going in!

Well, even if our mall zombies get their butts kicked and miss the bait that brought them onto the bargain-hunting battle grounds of consumer hell, they’ll buy some goddam thing they may or may not need and convince themselves it was worth all the effort.

They’ll then be able to make it back to their home base, show off their spoils of retail war, and warm up some of the Thanksgiving leftovers.  Some day, after decades of such gritty gotta get mine determination, these “vets” can regale the grandkiddies with their tales of tenacity and fighting the good fight.

Semper fi…

Well, we recently had two events of national significance: mid-term elections and Veteran’s Day. The mid terms were cloud nine nirvana for the right-wing faction of the GOP (more “tea baggers”, science-deniers, anti-union, pro corporate, deregulating-crazed free market zealots, and other icky add-ons to our already dysfunctional congress). For those who did vote and were hoping for some gains among seats whose cushions would contain the tushes of more moderate voices (those who actually speak to “we the people” rather than “we the special interests”) it was a rather gloomy day.

Into the abyss.

Well, as it turns out, the turn out, as in the number of registered voters who actually took time to vote, was very low. 36.4% to be exact. So if of those who supported the GOP candidates outnumbered those who sought democrats or even independent or “green” candidates by say, 22-14% or 20-16%, then about one-fifth of all potential voters got to dictate the coming congressional make-up for the other 80% of us who either voted for the left of center, or didn’t vote all. Remind me again of exactly how the U.S. is a democracy?

Of course it’s not a democracy. It’s not a dictatorship or a totalitarian enterprise, but it’s not quite a open, transparent, democratic representative government these days. After Citizen’s United being ruled 5-4 by our current Supreme Court in favor of “corporations are people and money is free speech” and with about 5-7 billions dollars having being spent on the recent mid-term elections, statewide or national offices, I’d say we are pretty much an oligarchy. Want to run for dog catcher? Better get a war chest of at least several hundred thousand dollars. Money may be “free” speech, but it’s not at all free in the political arena. It costs a fortune if one wants to speak as an elected official. Money corrupts? I’ve heard that somewhere. Ah, it’s probably just me and those silly cynical voices in my head. And if corporations are “people” can they get the flu, or sexually transmitted disease, high cholesterol, hypertension or migraines, among other afflictions common to we homo sapiens?

Hello, IBM and Monsanto! How’s the wife and kids today?

Well bully for the righteous righties.. They sold that snake oil–again! Such masters of deception! They successfully repressed the vote (“red state” voter i.d.requirements that reek of keeping minorities, elderly, college students, you know, those who tend to tilt toward democrats or independents). Their byzantine voter requirements make it hard  for wannabe voter-citizens to meet the i.d. “hoops” through which they’d have to jump in order to find themselves in front of the ballot box). Also, and even more sinister is their systematic decrying of the dysfunction and gridlock in congress (which they created!) that leaves many (those who have short memories) thinking a change is needed (and, hey, with a rigged two-party system, the implication is the GOP will make things work better). And a pig will fly out of my ass, too! The lack of real choice then implies for many that it doesn’t matter if one votes or not. Success! Thus, a small faction of voters win the day! Now, we can all sit back and watch more gridlock and listen to galling pontificating tumble from the mouths of obstructionists and bufoons, some of whom openly deny climate change, or who consider homosexuals “sub-human” and believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. It’s like looking at congress in a fun house mirror. What the hell is that weird looking thing?

We get the government we deserve. And when things get worse than they are right now, consult another mirror, folks. No, not the one in the fun house. The one your bathroom!  If you work for a living, living is about to become less workable, as in wages, benefits, job security, workplace safety, organized labor, not to mention women’s reproductive rights and public education, or infrastructure repair.  Care about the environment? Better enjoy it while you can. Go out and admire a bird’s nest and how well structured and functional they are, because the only nests that will be given protection by the critters coming to congress in January are those nests already fiercely fortified by well-funded fat cats who lay only golden eggs.

*     *     *

Now, about Veteran’s Day. Your humble narrator here is a vet. Vietnam era. Medical Corp. Drafted. 2 years active, four years reserve. Discharged honorably. Hated every minute of the experience. Why? Why?! What were we fighting that war for? It certainly wasn’t about protecting the USA and it’s “freedoms”. If you know it or not, after about ten years and the loss of nearly 59,000 military personnel, half a million wounded, and heaven knows how many dead Vietnamese civilians, we bailed out, let the North take the South, letting the dreaded commies take what we went there to prevent from happening in the first place. If we were fighting to defend the American way of life, or for “our national interests,” our values, economy or ability to walk about like a free people, then I guess all that really was just so much flag-waving folderol.  I came home (thankfully), and nothing about the American way of life changed. Not one bit of it. Zip. Zilch. Nada. So, why did we fight it? Who’s interests were served by all that bloodshed and horror?

Perhaps it was fought for the same reason we fought the Korean War in the early 1950s. Another fiasco. Again, no effects on life in the U.S. of A. except for the egg on our military’s face.  We gave up on that conflict and it was still baseball, ma’s apple pie and Chevrolet. Same same. Korea. Nam. Gulf I, and the tragic pretense of needing to invade and occupy Iraq. We have not had to literally fight to guarantee the American way of life since WWII. Hitler and Hirohito had a bloody agenda, and they weren’t going to stop at the borders of either Asia or Europe. We lose that war, and I’m not blogging right now. And you aren’t reading it either. You think that’s an exaggeration? Know history. Watch it, as I did not long ago, in a PBS series tracing the events of WWII, and the dire and desperate battles that determined the outcome of a  truly “good versus evil” confrontation that had real dire consequences for the losers. Hitler lost. Germany was left in ruins, bombed and burned out. Not to mention Japan. Two atomic bombs dropped on a mostly civilian population! If either of those countries got the ultimate weapon first, who doubts they would not have used it on us? All war is hell, but not all wars need to be hell because not all wars have to be fought. WWII had to be fought.

Iraq, as is supremely clear now, was a daily dose of disinformation at best and a pack of lies at worst. But Bush sold it and the American press and public bought it. And though we at first needed to go to Afghanistan after 9-1-1, it’s been years since we killed Bin Laden, but 13 years since first sending troops there, our soldiers continue to fight for…for…well. Who knows why?

As where the Vietnam vets were scorned by the public after the media consistently showed body bags and the carnage taking place there, then documented the atrocities committed by some of our war-crazed troopers (as though Nam was the first war to have atrocities be part of the insanity that is inherent in warfare). Now, however, through the new media “spin” of “freedom fighters” and “wounded warriors” that connote the Gulf and Afghan incursions, the regular dose of hyped up news segments fawning over the vet surprising a wife or child back in the states, and “thank you for your service” mantras and memes that seek to sell the notion that something, something was at stake by having these volunteer soldiers placed in harm’s way, to serve is to be a “hero” ipso facto. Is it a pitch to love the sinner this time, but hate the sin? No one’s spitting on these vets at airports. No way. Vet’s Day now has a flurry of freebies awaiting those who served. Free haircuts, meals,  massages and more. But make no mistake, it’s a selling of ignore the sin, then love the ones who were exploited by it.

Please don’t think I’m not respectful every veteran. They serve, honorably. Follow orders. Cover one another’s back, and are never out of the fight, in spirit at least. We do need a military in this sick and twisted global battle of radical ideologies, religions, egos and economic shape-shifting. Or at least the military industrial complex does. WWII was truly a fight for our freedoms and the soul of a country (along with the other Allied nations). That was stark reality to the troops and the populations back home. No slick media spin was needed.  And save the world for democracy these bona-fide  freedom fighters did. They saved our country so that it can now have all the warts and wickedly petty political poseurs passing themselves off as our “leaders”. They saved it for the dumb, lazy and stupid public to not bother voting or voting their propaganda-implanted fears, and not their actual needs.

Enjoy your freedoms, ladies and gentlemen. Just remember the warriors who fought, died or got ripped up physically or mentally who really did save our country to keep our freedoms intact, so that we now foolishly, blithely can let it slowly come apart at the seams.

I work at two community colleges. Both schools provide me with a faculty email address, and every day I check each, dutifully. There are always a handful of administrative notifications, and the occasional student wanting to notify me of an absence or clarification on course content, assignments, whatnot. Some need responding to, others just require a quick reading, an assessment, or a judgment.

Not surprisingly, email accounts aren’t all official business.  I don’t use Gmail or any other email system. Having two email addresses is enough. Would anyone want to retrieve “snail mail” from three, four or five properties? Absurd. Less is more.

However…

For the past few weeks, each of my accounts have been inundated with non-teaching-related matters. The messages are all breathlessly urgent in tone.  The sky is falling! is the essential theme in each email. Chicken Little has an iPad? What is it? No, more like Chicken Shit. It’s the pathetic, inept, incompetent, compromised, collusive and corrupted national Democratic Party. Not to be confused with the vile, venal, sociopathic, oligarchic, racist, homophobic, pseudo god fearing, blood-sucking, obstructionist, Republican Party.

I do not get emails from the GOP. That is because I’ve never given a penny to any campaigning republican or its national party. I wouldn’t cast a vote for a republican unless it was for conviction while serving jury duty.  I have, in years past, given a ruble or two to democratic candidates, most recently Elizabeth Warren when she was running for the U.S. Senate. She won. Hooray! My modest contributions were rewarded. Elizabeth is quite an exceptional democrat. She has integrity, is very smart, is for we the people, and speaks her mind, passionately. Naturally republicans fear her as a vampire mortally fears sunlight.

Well, in our world of on-line transactions, your name, address and purpose for purchase guarantees a sharing of such information by the intricate systems within a system that harvest data, then pass it along to other entities that feel they might, too, make a buck off a particular consumer’s apparent likes, values, beliefs. Donate to Mrs.Warren? Hey, this dude must LOVE all that is the “party of the people” and must want to further contribute to the national party.

Wrong, and here’s why…

Back to my email accounts. They have for weeks been flooded with appeals for money, likely written by some staff flunkies, but peddled with pretend pitches directly by Barack himself, or Michelle (I need you! she states. Geeze Michelle, what are you getting at?) or Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and on and on. Joe, we need MONEY! Money, money, so that they may defeat those rat bastard robber barons Koch brothers and their ilk, overturn Citizen United, protect the environment, save the downtrodden, protect the little people from GOP whackadoodles. Really? My first  question, Barack, Michelle, Nancy, Harry, et al: how did things get so desperate? Answer: because of you democrats!

For the past 34 years, democrats have become enablers and corporate-oriented co-conspirators in political perversions that have systematically sent this country tilting more and more to the Right. Start with the Reagan “revolution,” the Newt Gingrich “Contract with (on!) America,” the two arbitrary military incursions into sovereign countries by Bush I and Bush II, the deregulation of Wall Street, banks, and its ensuing infestation of Gordon Gecko avatars; The Patriot Act and its tossing of habeas corpus and other constitutional rights; the passage of Orwellian, double-speak named environmental policies advanced by republicans that are blatant bait-and-switch initiatives that let corporations have their way with once-protected lands, waterways and the air we breathe. Too many democrats  went along with all of it, wussy, wimpy and way out-of-touch with what the Party once stood for. Remember that Bill Clinton gleefully signed off on NAFTA, a USA job-killing gambit that has ruined many a small business and left its employees standing on a curb watching their jobs go to third world shit holes where workers are paid a pittance. The democrats, in an especially egregious bit of spinelessness, and as noted in a previous posting, permitted the confirmation of a moral scumbag and immensely unqualified Clarence Thomas to infest the Supreme Court for as long as he can still maintain a heartbeat (though his rulings can be heartless and hypocritical). Thanks for that one, “party of the people”.

So, I instantly delete these cyberspace, offensive and insulting pleas to help the Democratic Party, now presumably trying to beat back a beast that they were instrumental in helping create. How outrageously galling! How shallow and transparently dysfunctional a Party. My money won’t ever go to any democrat again, even if Elizabeth Warren clones herself a dozen times over. Why? Sadly, in my heart (I do have one) I believe it is just simply TOO LATE. Like correcting climate change is seemingly past the point of no return, my reading of the body politic, the John and Jane Doe citizens, the 1.3 party system that gives us virtually no choice, and recent history (including “hope and change!” President Obama) concludes this country is in for a nightmare mid-term election that will see things gets even worse than the quasi-fascist, neo-con plutocracy that it has become. Fat, lazy and stupid. That’s the voting public, the sheep who need a Morpheus to slip them that red pill, to free them from a mind-numbing matrix that peddles reality in corporate, candy-coated pop culture distractions and political rhetoric that would have the ancient Greek seekers of truth gagging on their leg of lamb.

There’s a lot of chicken out there. Chicken shit. Chicken hawks. Chicken Littles. It’s turning the United States into a creepy, dark and dank pseudo land of “equal opportunity” offering up stale bread and  bland circuses, tripe, trivial entertainment, and 10 second sound bites in a rigged game of “pretend democracy”.  The system uses money as its fuel. Everything is for sale, and we are being constantly asked to pay for more and more junk, junk  for our minds, our homes, our consumer cravings, junk in Congress and the White House.

Caveat emptor. And don’t forget to vote!

While driving to work earlier today, a radio talk show host was engaged in a give-and-take with a listener who called in to defend the slogan “in god we trust” on U.S. paper currency. The host invoked the separation of church and state language upon which the United States was founded, and extrapolated that point into other general aspects of alluding to a god, any god, as being a simple matter of belief that should not spill into government and political matters.

The caller, adamant in his belief that there is, indeed, a god, found no problem with religion mixing with government/politics. Furthermore, the caller insisted that he “knows” there is a god, one god, and embraced his monotheistic stance over and over. The host tried to get the man to explain how he “knows” there is a god, to which, of course, the retort was simply that he knows because he believes it’s true. “How do you know?” asked the host, several times, of course assured in the impossibility of the caller providing any verifiable proofs to back the assertion. The caller’s tone became more and more forceful in the face of each “How do you know?” at which time I had to park and get on with my day.

Listening to this exchange was, for me, a mix of absurdity–and alarm. The caller has every right to believe whatever he wants to believe. That’s not absurd. Anyone can believe anything. Whether or not what one believes can be elevated beyond personal opinion, however, is quite another matter. “How do you know?” simply asks for evidence, circumstantial if nothing else, but preferably irrefutable, tangible, undeniable proof. If such can be provided then some degree of logical reasoning is in play, and the opinion is more than simply personal. Whatever proof provided which goes directly to the assertion boosts the credibility of the belief, possibly all the way to the kind of fact that cannot be dismissed.

Well, empirical scientific methodology certainly strives to provide factual conclusions. Some researcher in a lab or on a field study doesn’t simply make assumptions without testing a hypothesis. Seeing can be believing, or it can be a matter of misinterpreting the data, physical, numerical or otherwise. Science is rigorously empirical, not a matter of “believing is seeing”. Quite the opposite.  Some facts are immutable, intransigent, rock-solid. Other “facts” go up in smoke, shift in the wind, dissipate, disappear. Here today, gone tomorrow. They can be remembered, photographed, filmed, sound recorded, noted in a logbook, but at some point–poof!–they head to one graveyard or another. They are now history. Studying history is examining a graveyard full of deceased facts.

Where is your blogger heading here? Well, back to our caller who “knows” there is a god. My short-term amusement in listening to such people make fools of themselves is quickly replaced buy a factual matter, and this fact is frightening: A lot of people believe in nonsense made up of assumptions, innuendo, inferences, and convolutions that lead to pretzel logic conclusions.  And religion, once released from an inner sense of deeply personal belief and faith, and with which such can come personal comfort, solace, courage, commitment and strength of character, but now sent out into the open, proselytized, promoted, organized, communally ritualized, given a formal, shared sense of certitude and righteousness, inherently becomes exclusive. Dogmatic. Possibly dangerous.

That caller and his kind can vote and support candidates at all levels of government who also are overt broadband “believers” and then peddle an imaginary currency that slogans “In god we Thrust”. Then it may become an ill-informed ideology iterated within the political sausage-making legislative bodies, local, statewide or national. Feel  free to  talk about subjects such as gay marriage, stem cell research or contraception, but just don’t vote yes on any of them because…well, you know why. In this country, in some outposts where the tooth fairy theory thrives, Creationism is required curriculum as counterpoint to science’s approach to evolution, geology and astronomical calculation. There’s the warning that when a flesh and blood devil comes along he/she will be wrapped in the U.S. flag and carrying a Bible. But local state and national isn’t the limitation on the tooth fairy’s turf. It goes quite international, too.

There’s plenty of global religious exclusivity. All in the name of another “I know because I believe” mantra. Or more likely just an excuse for radical actions, oppression, ethnic and religious persecutions. Someone once wrote, “never has so much blood been shed than for that of the kingdom of god.” It’s an inter-faith, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural spilling of the precious red stuff  by many true believers  who “know” they have the right god and conversely anyone who disagrees is wrong. Again, it’s fine to believe in god, but not advisable to insist you know you have the best god, the right god, the true god, even if you can’t provide any means of evidence that elevates that personal opinion to fact.

So, if you have a little tike whose time has come to start shedding the first of two sets of teeth we all are programmed to get, then slip that dislodged bit of enamel under that sweetheart’s pillow and kiss him or her nighty-nite, and in stealth mode then replace it with some paper currency (and its allusion to a god in whom it trusts) and let them have their merry moment. Eventually they’ll have a nice chunk of change for their futures. Of course they’ll eventually realize the pillow bit was all charade, though buying into the nonsense was fun at the time. It’s just that there are so many other “tooth fairy” claims out there. If only people could just keep such beliefs to themselves.

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Looking for love? In all the wrong places? Or maybe just not the right direction. Love can come from any direction, including from above. No, I’m not about to launch into a religious screed here. Whether you ascribe to the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Book of Zen, or await further exalted pronouncements from Oprah, the All Knowing and Infallible, well good for you. Love may or may not be a by-product of such holy devotions, spoken or written. Love? If “it is written” somewhere, it is written in the wind and just about as impossible to quantify or contain, control, or bend to one’s will as is that particular force of nature.

“God is in the rain” speaks a character in the movie V for Vendetta. God is everywhere, nowhere. God is love? Love is god-given? Destiny? A roll of the dice? Look from within. Love comes, love goes. It’s out there. In there. Love once was, but is carried off by the wind, saturated and drowned by torrents of rain, consumed in a conflagration sparked by inevitable relationship friction. Make love not war. The storm will pass. The skies will clear and the sun will symbolize brighter better things to come, love. Yeah, look to skies. Look when it’s cloudy, rainy, or cobalt blue extending to every horizon, maybe dusky gray, in the daily moments of the day’s descending dark. Look up. See the stars. Look up, Jenny Hayden. You don’t know it yet but the love you lost may be found again. It will be by sheer happenstance. By a trajectory not realized. An abrupt descent that falls far short of its intended target. Happenstance. Coincidence. God’s way of winking at us? Or mocking us?

The future. Never certain. Just ask Jenny Hayden.

Starman is coming. Okay. It’s a movie. 1984. Jeff Bridges. Karen Allen. He’s an alien. She’s recently widowed. The alien craft blazes into the north woods of Wisconsin. A glowing ball of mystery slowly leaves the wreckage and glides steadily across the lake, headed directly to Ms.Hayden’s house and the heartbreak she harbors within it. While she sleeps, the alien in its glowing form manages to survey her domicile’s main room and finds a lock of her late husband’s hair, kept now as a memento of what was once her mortal husband’s living,loving, breathing presence in her life. The alien, with an incredible ability to take DNA and assimilate into a human form, does just that. Jenny awakes to some odd noises, sees what appears to be a baby on the floor, except this baby is rapidly evolving into a grown man, and the spitting image of her dead husband.

Much shock, disbelief, fear, confusion, consternation  ensue. Long story short. Starman needs to get to the intended destination, in Arizona. The Mothership will retrieve him there, near the giant crater near Winslow. Jenny Hayden, though afraid and freaked, gradually comes to realize this phantasmagorical image of her husband means her no harm, and after an attempt to ditch the clone at a truck stop, eventually emotionally bonds with him in wanting to see him to his destination. And the alien subsumes enough human DNA to feel–something. They need one another. But of course, the feds and military are looking for the alien, and seriously mobilize to capture him; and their intentions are, to say the least, nefarious. Always bumps in the road. Welcome to earth…

By the time they reach that crater, the alien disguised as her dead husband, and Jenny both have truly grown fond of one another. In spite of the close call with the military trying to capture him, the moment has arrived when the rescue ship begins its descent from above. Along the way, Starman has literally brought Jenny back from the dead after she is shot while they try outrunning the authorities on the road to Craterdom.  Starman has also impregnated Jenny, who has previously revealed to her far-out friend that she is not biologically wired to have progeny.

And so, by the time the moment has arrived to say goodbye, for Starman/husband/love of her life from another world, to leave her behind, it is rather difficult to know what to feel for the both of them. She feels love again. For Starman, from above. From beyond.  From out of nowhere. One doesn’t look for love, it finds you. “Take me with you!” she implores him. “You’ll die if I do.”  If he stays, he will die. Worlds seperated by the vastness of outer space collide. She accepts her fate. Starman asks how humans properly say goodbye. She explains the simple process, with includes those three words: I love you. And he ascends with the starship, knowing Jenny Hayden is one special and loving human. She watches him disappear, literally into thin air, her eyes expressiing, all at once, love, wonder and awe, all wrapped into one long fade-to-black finale.

But now she has a baby on the way, who Starman has said will understand things fluidly when she explains the improbable truth of how he came to be conceived. She can love the child. And the memories.

Sure it’s a romance of science fiction. But looking for real love among our fellow homo sapiens can be as though looking for divine intervention in the form of…whatever. So, one can never know in what shape, and from  what direction, such epiphany, such happenstance, such perfectly and possibly imperfect timing may come, or when it may ultimately have to go if ever even found.

Goodbye, Jenny Hayden. Good luck with our starchild. Your planet is infested with hatred and divisiveness. I’m outta here.

Tomorrow is primary election day in Illinois. Lots of candidates, from Governor on down to ward flunkies. Illinois is a deep blue state with deeper corruption. The last two governors went to prison. A fascist turd disguised as a Democrat is Mayor of Chicago. The State’s pension system is a shambles. Illinois’ bond rating is nearing “junk” status. Wink wink, nod nod is a parliamentary formal sign of procedure in the legislative chamber down in Springfield, where a particularly rancid brand of political sausage has been getting ground out for decades now. The stench is reminiscent of Chicago’s “hog butcher to the world” days, though the end product is political pork for the pinky ring set.

Ah, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, inarguably one of our greatest Presidents once practiced law in Illinois and ascended to the White House from Springfield politics . What would old Honest Abe now think of the state of affairs in the state that displays car plates with the slogan Land of Lincoln on each set? Hey, did I say Illinois is a blue, really blue state, as opposed to a  red state, which is dominated by Republican legislatures? Well, our former  governors of this blue state may be making license plates that tout Abe’s former residence here, but keep in mind, Mr.Lincoln was a Republican. But that was 150 years ago.  Republicans getting elected to high office in Chicago or Springfield these days are about a rare as a Chicago Cubs winning season.

All of these remarks lead to a robo-call I received today. It was someone from the Illinois Education Association (I’m an educator/union member) urging me to vote. Teachers and their unions tend to prefer blue over red, politically.  Me? I’m a Green Party/Independent voter more than anything, locally or nationally.  I expected the mechanically reproduced appeal on the robo-call to encourage votes for Democrats who, corrupt as they may be in this state, still largely refrain from union-bashing and scapegoating of teachers and other “public servants” as part of our economic problems. We teachers (and firefighters and cops) somehow are a special drain on state coffers, according to the Paul Ryan/Tea Party mantra for Republicans far and wide. Government workers are parasites. Leeches. Blah blah. Okay. Fear appeals. Please engage brain before reacting to such. Back to the recorded appeal. The message  was to vote, alright. To vote…for…one…of…the…Republican candidates running for governor! Most teachers union members are democrat-leaning, but for primaries, a voter can ask for any ballot, be it for blue, red or green candidates. . The appeal was for democratic voters to ask for the republican ballot in order to vote for the underdog candidate, not the front running guy. Why? Because the Republican primary candidate with the big bucks and the lead in the polls promises to go after our unions as part of a free-market utopian agenda. See above, Paul Ryan.

Well, I personally don’t want a republican governor who seeks to reduce my wages and strangle my union and destroy public education.Privatizing public education turns it into a for-profit operation. Talk about corrupting!  However, I am psychologically, emotionally, intellectually and even physically incapable of voting for a republican. Ever. And I’ve felt that way since long before the Tea Party wing-nuts hijacked the GOP. If I voted for a republican, even as part of a “Trojan horse” strategy, I’d feel filthy, and another kind of stench would fill my nostrils. Hell, I’m asking for the Green Party ballot, okay? Democrats are not what they used to be either, and I don’t mean for the better. Third party, anyone? Fourth, fifth party?

The irony. From Abe to this. 150 years ago, I’d have likely voted for candidate Lincoln. I’m sure I’d have  liked his platforms and proposals. Today’s GOP would run Abe out of town, though. Not conservative enough. Free the slaves? Abe, it’s free markets, not free slaves, understand? But other than climbing into a time machine and with a clean conscience actually being able to vote for an Abe Lincoln, I’m never, ever, not a chance, voting for a republican for any reason whatsoever. I’ll find that Green Party hopeful and again cast a protest vote. If the IEA wants its members to prevent big money from buying the governor’s seat and launching attacks on public servants, it’s just more evidence of how bad things have gotten. Ask the democratic rank and file members to demand campaign finance reform, not a republican ballot. If republican-leaning voters want to vote for a wealthy one-percenter even though 99% of us don’t benefit from such candidate’s ideas, then stupid is as stupid does eh?

The voters of Illinois–remember, it’s a Blue state– have been dumb enough to elect the same corrupt democratic office holders over and over, then bitch about them when they rob the pension systems while feathering their own nests. The public gets what they deserve. It’s a national case of voter apathy and/or idiocy. I’ll vote my conscience, okay? I’ll never live to see any substantive change, but at least I can walk out of a voting booth having thought for myself, and not bought into cheap fear mongering and pleas for me to vote against my instincts and informed opinions.

Honest, Abe. This state is brain-dead. Maybe the entire country. Is there a Zombie Party? There should be! Their members are on the scent of that fetid political sausage and somehow are sustained by consuming it. The rare healthier fare on the ballot just doesn’t whet their appetite. How could it?. These zombie/citizens  have really, really poor eating habits and dysfunctional olfactory systems. And tomorrow is one of their banquets.

Better stock up on the antacids.

The other day, a bill in congress was voted down, primarily by Republican opposition. The GOP blocking legislative proposals that have to with any range of important issues is nothing new. The mantra they repeat most often is “we can’t afford this” especially if no spending cuts are included to “offset” the bill’s financial component (the cuts they suggest are mostly having to do with social programs, including food stamps, social security, Medicaid and so forth). So, what was this latest bill that the republicans deep-sixed? Well, nothing less than providing the Veterans Administration with additional funding to provide greater assistance to–who else?, our veterans. You know, those who served in the military, even ever smaller number of those whose service was way back in WWII, and up to current deployments around the globe.

The cold-heartedness of such political cynicism is obvious enough. So, even our military veterans are cut no slack with the “deficit hawk” conservatives in congress. Given that it is congress that supported recent troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the cruel irony of these naysayers is virtually palpable. How could it not be ironic–and galling– given the now well documented disengenuousness of the reasons the Bush administration advanced for the invasion of Iraq, which cost several thousand of our troops to lose their lives, and tens of thousands more injured. The expression what’s wrong with this picture? aptly applies as the bitter rhetorical question that it is in this context.

Well, there’s so much else to bitch about as far as our dysfunctional government goes, but I am not going in that broader direction here. This Vietnam era vet will stick with fresh anger and disgust for our congressional failure that the defeated bill spotlights. It’s simply the latest de facto evidence of a cynical and sinister bunch of cretins who occupy congress. Who votes for this kind of government? How did things come to this point as far as witnessing both republicans and democrats failing to promote the common good hardly ever anymore, and now not even being able to do what’s right for a small faction of our citizenry called military veterans. Nothing personal, I’m sure. Just protecting that bottom line. Make do with what we can afford, okay? And we can’t afford to do any more. Now excuse us while we fund some projects for our home districts. Maybe another bridge or two to nowhere.

Perhaps those who voted to deny the vet’s bill passage will get an earful from their constituents, but I doubt it. Keep that pork coming into their voting districts and the sheep will not bleat a bit. Hell, the public-at-large is detached, distracted and deluded about what’s worth paying attention to beyond their backyards.

This disgraceful slap in the face of those who serve (and these days, it’s all volunteer service) is now par for the congressional course. How many members of congress ever wore a military uniform? Hmmm.

So, while we still have Afghan troops being killed and wounded, and await congress’ inevitable approval of deployment again somewhere down the road to further the cause of saving the world for democracy, even if it means shredding the Constitution a la Iraq, current and future service members know where congress stands on spending for all that goes with military missions. At least we might be comforted in knowing that there’s a mid-term election coming soon, and perhaps the voting public will disengage just enough from the popular culture’s empty calorie menu of guilty pleasures to seek vengeance. Well, at least the voters who have sons or daughters or extended family or close friends who served to protect our many freedoms, especially the freedom to cast a vote, might feel motivated for some polititcal payback.

But do NOT hold your breath waiting for significant change to come. Like global warming (which astoundingly, many of the same republicans who deny vets their due, do not believe is real) I fear we may be past the point of no return politically. We’ll just wait for the implosion, I guess, and when things fall apart and the center can no longer hold, everyone will be able to easily visualize a reality that answers the question that need not be asked: what’s wrong with this picture?

Better too late, even, than never, I suppose.