It
was Norman Goldman on at three, and this was one of the least productive hours
he has ever done. Norman is clinging to
this myth that conservatives only want to go back to some point in the
past. I was thinking of years and came
up with reasons why conservatives wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot
poll. People hear a lot of crap from a lot of places but never put any of it to the test, or as one speaker said "Put flesh and blood on these people and make it a real situation". For instance if they were to say they wanted to go to an earlier time - - - one would expect they'd have the fondest memories of - like “Morning in America’ where Reagan was running for
reelection and Los Angeles was winning in the Olympics, just think. Conservatives would not like this era one
bit. For one thing they had no infrastructure,
no internet, and worst of all no FOX news.
Rush Limbaugh wasn’t even registered to vote and considered himself a
comedian in those days. Bill Handel was
hooked on crack cocaine in Miami, and Laura Schleshenger was a slut, before she
discovered she was really an Orthodox Jew.
The top tax rate was not the 39% they are complaining about today but
fifty percent. The fairness doctrine was
still in force. And the media was quite
anti Republican in those days. After all they portrayed him as a man who would not even use the word AIDS in a speech, so repelled was he by the topic) But if you go back to other years, like say -
- 1959 during the Eisenhower years, knowing how progressive his policies were -
- or go all the way back to 1924 if you want to. We were isolationist in those days, you
know. War, particularly international
war, was viewed as a bad thing. The idea
of staging a War for profit was absolutely unheard of, and would have been
regarded as unspeakably immoral. Even in
those days they taught Darwin in the schools.
There’s no getting away from it.
And by the way they also had the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Income
Tax, and also Teddy Roosevelt was seen as a hero for trust-busting, and by the
way pot was completely legal. So Norman Goldman completely misses the point.
It isn’t the past the Democrats are afraid of, but the Future. Because these Neo Cons want to take us into a
brave new world that has never been- - -
. In fact if you think of it the
Neo Cons would have sided with the British in the dumping of the tea in Boston. Because they have much more in common with
the British- - with some sort of an autocratic leader and the merging of church
and state- - and a standing army that feels free in an Imperial sense to have
perpetual wars- - using mercenary troops.
That’s what Laura’s son was, a mercenary. He’s a killer for higher, voluntarily going off
to fight in an immoral war.
A lot of my recent blog
postings have been on the subject of “the futility of it all” and feeling
powerless. I can’t escape the irony that
a political faction that when you come right down to it, serves the interests
of only a select few, is running both the politics of the country and the
media, too, and all of the debates are framed the way these elite individuals
want it to be framed. If I haven’t said
so but at some point Obama’s claimed solidarity with Israel will be put to the
test. “God” (for lack of a better term)
has been with the nation of Israel up till now.
Will this continue? The Jews
and Moslems both put so much stock in the notion that “genetics is everything”
when the two peoples are so closely related it isn’t funny, and if anything the
Arabs have a lot better genetic purity credentials than the people who now call
themselves Jews. Bill is asleep. Joe keeps saying this place is a hell
hole. And I have been plagued by
thoughts lately that “There just has to be more to life than - - This”. I have not written Dr Levy. I hope to be more assertive at getting to
see Dr Messina this week.
I had Norman Goldman
on. No I didn’t know he recorded the
show from Los Angeles, I thought he was
based in Chicago or some place in a remote part of the country. It seems that 22 Million single women who
voted in 2008 didn’t vote in 2010 and even if this subset of voters had turned
out to the polls, the outcome may have been very different. There were callers offering advice on how to
best convince women that it was in their vital interest to get out to the polls
and vote, even if it’s not convenient, or they’re tired or something from
working all day. You have to throw
logic out the window however. Looking at
what in economics call “the fundamentals” they should be excellent for a
democratic victory this fall. Every
demographic that is progressive- - is growing in number and every demographic
that is republican in nature- - is shrinking.
Age is a big factor and people are dying off all the time. People are also becoming voting age all the
time, too- - bolstering the potential for democratic voters. The democraphics on immigration and
minorities favor the democrats, and the republicans are making no friends right
now with Latinos in particular. The gay
thing is even more volatile. Because
unlike 2010 when being pro gay was still a bit taboo, now gayness is openly
embraced even by many republicans. Every
hard and inflexible position either on the young, with college loans, or gay
marriage, or the host of “war on women” issues, or with this border situation-
- these are all walking advertisements for voting democrat. Normal Goldman said “TV advertisers know that
you first have to find a “problem that needs fixing” that the viewer has. Wither it’s sun tan oil, or itchy feet, or a
brighter smile, or that old car doesn’t have the get up and go it used to, and
the way to feel younger is to get a faster car.
On all of the big issues where
John Boehner refuses to let the House even vote- - the American people fall on
the progressive side of that particular issue. Still those in the know, who conduct survays
that “It’s almost hopeless holding on to the Senate, and the Republicans may
even pick up House seats”.
So what is it the
Republicans have going for them. Well-
- I have discovered something
disburbing. Going all the way back to
the 1972 connection with me, my life has consistently fared better after a
republican victory than a democratic victory.
There are only two big flies in the ointment to this theory. In 1984 Reagan won- - and my life gradually
got worse after that. And in 1976 Carter
won - - and my life was in a good roll. But
the closer to the present you come, the more obvious this trend becomes. There
was a dramatic improvement in my life starting in the last four or five months
of 1994. After Clinton’s reelection my
life began going downhill. As for 2001 -
- this year- the second half anyhow, came out a whole lot better than I had any
right to expect. 2005 was one of my
happiest years. 2009 was one of the
crappiest years in my life. 2011 there
was a decided improvement in my life starting with the closing weeks of
2010. Of course with 2012, to me this
election felt like a loss even though Obama won, because the republican power
was still entrenched more than ever.
The governors of Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin were still in
power. Even though Christie and Scott
Walker are under criminal investigation- - it almost seems as if nothing will
come of either investigation despite the mounds of evidence. It’s almost as though the prosecutors of
these two governors don’t WANT to file direct charges. So now we come to 2014, and you’ll understand
why from a strictly personal point of view- - I don’t care. NOT with this extensive track record which I
can’t explain- except that it exists. I
mean after 2008 I was happy the Democrats won - - - - but there was virtually
nothing in the next year to justify that “happiness”. (Selah)
One
thing that existed fifty years ago that doesn’t exist now for the most part is
clarity of moral focus. We had people
issuing the trumpet call to action such as Lyndon Johnson, Bob Dylan, Martin
Luther King, and I believe, Malcolm X, too.
John Pastori gave the keynote speech of the Democratic Convention where
he reminded us all of the accomplishments of the past 32 years, and how the
Republicans would seek to undo all these hard won victories. When you think about it, the last President
the republicans would regard as a “Good President” would be William Mc Kinley,
who stage what we now know to be a phoney war.
The Spanish American war was based on the so called “Attack on the Ss
Maine”, which investigation revealed to be just a malfunctioning boiler that
exploded. It’s like Massada in the Ben
Hur movie investing those Tiles on the roof and realized that yes they were
indeed loose, but he didn’t care. The
strange thing is that Mc Kinley was regarded by people early in the twentieth
century as “a relic of the past we never wanted to go back to”. Normal was right in one thing and that is
normally Time progresses forward and not backward. But of course these are not normal
times. But some in the Faith community would
only say “Well it’s in troubled times that we need to turn to faith in Jesus”. (Or as Jim Morrison once said, "They retreat to the warm, cotton womb of infancy") Dylan’s moral focus has been severely
impacted by Jesus. For instance in 1983
he did one song bashing Labor Unions called “Sundown on the Union” and another
called “Sometimes Satan comes as a man of Peace”. The problem is the other 99% of the time,
Satan comes as an out and out war monger.
In fact even Dylan has a glimmer of truth in the song “License to Kill”,
which could be about either OJ, or Dick Chaney.
But I remember there was an interview in 1992 on the Howard Stern
program where a guest said ‘I don’t know about Dylan- - he’s pretty wasted- -
he was really wacking” (whacked
out?) His mind as well as his voice was
gone. Of course let’s give people like
Neil Savedra the benefit of the doubt for a moment and say “Oh, we’re all just
in a state of rebellion against the kingdom of God”. This is from a man who has not one time, ever
criticized the Iraq War, but when queries on the topic, only appeared to praise
it. The problem with the whole “God” thing is that
as Dr Levy admitted to me- - “There is no way where the validity or lack of it-
- with God can EVER be tested”. That’s
quite an admission. If something can
never be Tested- - how we know it’s valid?
Yet they will quote Jehovah himself in some OT passage saying “I won’t
submit to your continued testing of me the way you test a bar of gold”. Jesus put it more succinctly in the new
saying “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. Of course this would lead to certain
consequences. For instance if I give
ascent to this line of reasoning I then have to ask myself “How then can avoid
any aituation where God’s word is EVER tested in my life?” The answer comes “hard upon” the
question. (to get Shakespherian) That is to never trust him or believe
him. Because the minute I believe or
trust in him the more God, by necessity, is being “tested”. (Selah)
So indeed Satan would be proclaiming the loudest to the doubters out
there “Submit to God and trust his appointed spokesmen (such as Neil of KFI)
completely”. But then even if I submit,
I then look at others who have committed worse sin (including murder, of which
there IS no case in the New Testament) and they seem to be having a much easier
time of it, and they tell me “Well, the Lord knows just how much temptation
each person can bear”. But then later on
the same people- - I’m thinking particularly of Neil of KFI and Pastor Bill
Halliday, will then come back and say to you”Well you know anybody with “God
issues’ (or preferably, you come to the conclusion that belief in God is neither rational, nor mentally healthy for you) it’s because they’ve had some traumatic bad experience with religion in
the past, and therefore their opinion is invalid”, (or as Neil puts it, "Since it's a known fact that Atheism is not a rational belief, people who ARE Atheists must be somehow mentally - - unsound). Now this, of course makes no
sense, but that’s what they say. So
bottom line- - you want to make peace, just like Israel wants to make peace
with Hammas, or Jack Junior wants to make peace with Eve Donavin, but the other
person makes it impossible. (There is a
scripture that says, “As far as it lies within you, dwell in peace with all
men) But J J’s warning to Eve was
poinient, and could be generalized “If I were you I’d dial it way back- -
because if you persist with these continued hostile actions- - it’s only going
to be a lot tougher on you in the end”.
(Selah)
No comments:
Post a Comment