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…taking myself too seriously again…

 

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…Squirming Right & Left….

It’s an election year, so there’s not much one can do about the snarky, below the belt politicking that will likely continue well beyond Election Day by one side or the other. Yet, as obnoxious as it can be, I celebrate the fact that our political playing field is still free for us to trash talk to our hearts’ content.

I do have an opinion or three about the trash talk itself, of course. We each tend to respond to such sideline passions according to our personal politic, so I’ll talk about mine.

I hear a considerable amount of energy going into “attack politics”, and I try not to respond to that tactic. When someone is trying to recruit my support for a particular candidate, I want to hear what their person wants to do if elected, not a detailed account of everything they believe the other guy did wrong since the time he or she was toilet trained.

Even if the poisonous allegations are true, I need to know that the proposed replacement has positive and realistic plans for the office if elected.

Sidestepping these issues today would be pretty silly, considering the atmosphere surrounding the 2020 Presidential election. We have Republican extremists on one side, Democrat extremists on the other, and a significant population of the confused and/or disgusted in the middle. That’s not out of the ordinary, but the opposition to the sitting President seems to be more personal than political, and it seems to be driven by a nastier force than is usually the case.

I’m puzzled, and perhaps confused, but it seems to me that the Democrat Party, which I see as associated with the “PC” movement, is also associated with the use of some of the most vitriolic hatred, which the “PC” folks themselves so vehemently condemn.

I’m neither a fan of nor a cheerleader for the President Trump, and while I find former VP Joseph Biden to be about as threatening as a hangnail I am deeply concerned about the attendant microbes he would bring through the door with him. For one, but by no means the greatest threat to the direction in which I believe this country needs to go, is Sen. Bernie Sanders, humping Biden’s leg like a hound in a butcher shop. An avowed socialist, though he tries to minimize the anti-American taste of that word by cloaking it under the banner of the Democrats, his goals are clear. Sanders, and his entourage, envision a United States where the federal government is the source of all things good, involuntarily funded by those who contribute the most to the GDP and who should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors and/or good fortune unmolested. But that is just surface grime.

The real chiller is the underlying assault on the foundation of the national character. Every generation seems to have its challenges and sore spots, and the current atmosphere is one apparently focused on the virtual annulment of the principles of industry and personal liberty the country was built upon. People, by their very nature, tend to be charitable to varying degrees. I recall a story from the seventeenth century where a widow was provided with firewood and other assistance by her community. I don’t think that spirit is dead, but it certainly has been dampened by the development of public assistance as a government industry in its own right, powered by an authoritarian underlayment in the guise of good heartedness.

The “PC” philosophy that has expanded over recent decades started from the traditions of charity and the sense of community and rather rapidly transitioned through a brief phase of official endorsement to one of increasing government involvement to the vast bureaucracies of today dedicated to the success and growth of the Welfare State. This is no conspiracy. It is the result of complacency and the erosion of certain core values that allowed the concept of a government of, by, and for the people to become perverted into a people in service of the government.

Sen. Sanders and his ilk actually don’t concern me nearly as much as the tangible disappearance of men and women cheerleading freedom and opportunity, visible and active as recently as the election of 2016. They are quiet. In fact, it as if they have all been removed from the planet. We have been left with a manicured pathway to four more years of President Trump’s disturbed Narcissism and hyperbole, with Congress seated silently in their assigned places like a bunch of stuffed animals arranged for a child’s puppet show, or an army of grinning raiders pretending to be Santa Clause to the masses while in the background their partners and servants lay claim to the productivity and property of the movers and shakers.

We live in challenging times, indeed.

I am saddened by the lack of energetic young Americans anxious to discover solutions to the problems of the twenty first century that respect the principles of the Constitution and Bill of Rights without taking the easy way out of those in power resorting to force, and those in a position to do so seeking that power to protect their own access to benefits.

In a society such as that being sought by a small corner of the population, there are two primary ways to survive: one is to surrender one’s drive to achieve and become a ward of the state, enjoying a minimum of the necessities, and developing an underworld economy for the procurement of luxuries and amusements; or two, become one of the administrators in charge, an enforcer, or a toady of the state, herding the People like cattle to ensure that they may sit at the head table instead of at the public trough.

I’m not yet sure what I will do in November. It is a dilemma. There is a juvenile part of me who would like to write in my own name, Mickey Mouse, or Alfred E. Newman as there isn’t even a viable third party candidate available to check out. While I see Joseph Biden as rather impotent and probably harmless, I can’t un-knowthe fact that this alleged champion of Equal Rights and Non-discrimination chose his running mate on the basis of race and gender. President Trump, on the other hand, would have best served the nation since January of 2017 had he been mute both “literally” and vocally. He has the speaking manner of a preadolescent and confuses reality with half truths, hyperbole, and fiction, which he denies when confronted by the media or blames on somebody else. He can be hard to take, but his “style” is universally understood now and I cautiously see him as far less of a threat than Biden’s hidden puppet masters.

The choice seems to boil down to whether I prefer to drop the brick on my right foot or my left.
 

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…at least by “PC” standards….

I’d like to plead the usual and say I don’t know how that happened, but I suspect I do.

Give voice to an untruth often enough and it becomes truth. Let me illustrate the point. Here’s an experiment. Select a friend or coworker you are relatively certain will neither sue you nor cause you bodily harm, someone you are likely to encounter on multiple occasions during the day.

The first time you run into him or her, adopt a bit of a surprised expression and, with all of the appropriate body language, lean toward them and say something like “….are you OK? ….No, really, are you OK?”

Of course the person will look back at you like they have just witnessed you losing your sanity. “…No….I mean yes, of COURSE I’m OK? What’s going on?”

Blow it off, make a few “talk about the weather” false starts, wish them a good day, and leave. Repeat some version of the above every time you run into them for the rest of the day.

There is a good chance the person will feel ill by evening.

It doesn’t always work, of course, but it does often enough to make it a prank worth risking a poke in the nose over…if you are a truly twisted person.

I believe my acquiring the characteristics of racism is partially due to a similar process, but it hasn’t been a prank or a plot. Another thing that I suspect has contributed to my fall from grace has nothing to do with my falling but everything to do with “Grace” undergoing a significant identity crisis.

Generally speaking, I have not undergone any fundamental personality or behavioral changes myself. I grew up in one of those mid-twentieth century families right out of “Dick and Jane”. We flew the flag every day, said grace at the dinner table, went to church every week, said please and thank you but not ain’t, and swearing was forbidden. I was taught to respect my elders, that all persons were of value, I gave my seat to a woman if needed and opened doors for her just because that’s what you did.

The core of those values is still fundamental to my being, for the most part, though I stopped opening doors for women when I was called a %$#@& chauvinist pig for doing so back in the sixties.

I haven’t been to church on my own account in decades, attending funerals and weddings out of courtesy and respect, and much to my own chagrin, I can’t seem to get from one end of a sentence to the other without unleashing serial “F” bombs and a few additional profane modifiers.

Nevertheless, the underlying values are in there, and never have they include unkind or offensive references to others because they were “different” from me. In fact, my parents sponsored a Japanese exchange student through some church program and my kid sister dated at least one African American and one guy of Asian heritage that I know of. We just didn’t have culturally formed concerns about such things. I still don’t.

On the other hand, I grew up witnessing the Civil Rights movement from the git-go, Women’s Lib, and all of the related socio-political tsunamis of my generation, and how society underwent significant changes in their wake.

Populations being afforded positive changes, and those demanding same, gained certain changes in their status that bore a certain amount of irony. Their central desire, in addition to no longer being treated badly, was to simply achieve “equality”, to be treated just like everybody else. In the end however, they were labeled as “marginalized”, victims of discrimination, and were again set aside as “different”, but this time in the sense of being protected and deserving of special treatments. Barriers were removed that had prevented or sabotaged their ability to compete and succeed in the past, but then ladders and go-arounds were erected or created to give them an edge over those who had previously, allegedly, had an unfair edge over them. It was, in many ways, just a turning of the tables. Normal human behavior, I suppose, but this became further wrapped in an informal “No-Talk” atmosphere wherein speaking critically about certain things was considered “prima facie” evidence of “racism” and all associated subsidiary ideologies and behaviors.

Most of the overstated and overextended ideologies and behaviors associated with Civil and other Rights movements growing out of the sixties was created and nurtured not by the populations themselves but by advocacy and political action groups. These groups not only spearheaded programs for the benefit of the underprivileged but created career tracks and supporting bureaucracies that established a “dependency” of their own upon the very people they were purported to help.

By the turn of the twenty first century, this element became known as the “PC” or “Politically Correct” movement, and for the first time statues and laws supporting the guarantees of the Constitution became interpreted as rendering creeds, statements, language, and associating with groups that disagreed with aspects of these statues and laws were treated as crimes themselves.

Speaking in what is deemed “derogatory” and therefore forbidden terms to or about selected groups of people today could subsequently be prosecuted on the federal level as a “hate crime”. The concept of “hate” was been redefined to include, in addition to the traditionally referenced negative emotion, a presumed active intent to do harm to the target individual or group. In my opinion, this is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

And that, I guess, is how I became a “racist,” not through any angry, violent, or exclusionary thoughts about or behaviors towards people of ethnic and geographic heritages different from my own, but because I have had the audacity to discuss related issues and their societal impact openly as an exchange of ideas.

I am sad for my country and her contentious history of seeking truth and justice for all, and I am angry at those who wear their threats to harm to her as merit badges.

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The Other Side of the Fence….

I guess I try to make my view of the universe avoid a “One Size Fits All” philosophy, the challenge being the more intense my feelings are about a matter, the more restricted my thinking tends to be about it. I congratulate myself on being “human”. That is not necessarily a compliment. We have both positive and negative traits. Today, I’ll focus on the negative.

Also known as black and white thinking, polarized thinking, and all or nothing thinking, a “One Size Fits All” approach to assessing something and drawing a conclusion about it, is a short cut. In many aspects of our daily lives, we enjoy “short cuts” as a matter of convenience or curiosity, but in the more vague corners of our thinking, they tend to be taken out of a real or perceived necessity. The decision about whether to take a short cut or to go the accustomed route may be largely unconscious, a remote vestige of the days when having a seat or running like hell meant the difference between sitting down tomorrow or being some beast’s lunch today.

Today, that translates roughly to my observation that people are prone to short cut thinking in direct proportion to the levels of stress or fear they are under. When we are taught by the behaviors of our primary caretakers, and/or by our personal experiences to expect all persons of a certain population to exhibit identical negative or positive traits under certain circumstances, we will tend to judge similar people by those same standards under all circumstances. This can be overcome in many cases, but not always. Another trick of human nature is that we tend to favor observations and experiences that can be interpreted as proving us to be right. Conversely, when we encounter something that stands to prove us wrong, one may tend to interpret it as a fluke, an exception, or in extreme cases, a bunch of shit.

We all boogey on through our days accordingly, sometimes stubbing a toe, sometimes being complete ass-holes, but generally getting along okay, mostly by progressively choosing acquaintances and associates likely to reinforce our brilliant sides and unlikely to suggest the opposite.’

Okay, let’s do a three meter belly flop into politics.

I can’t recall having experienced or read about any period of history when political matters weren’t fraught with the potential for Molotov Cocktails or at least extended middle digits. Nature of the beast. Some times are more conflicted and intense than others, of course. The present period is one of those times of sharp division and disagreement accompanied by a sense of urgency that tends to set the stage for such abbreviated logic trains and decision trees.

“You are this, therefore you are that. Period. End of story. ”

Right from the top of the tree to the mud below without bouncing off any branches in between, mainly because they have all been lopped off in advance.

The ones most likely to be uninfluenced by this phenomenon are those who don’t really seem to give a crap in the first place. They aren’t unaffected, however, because their fates are written by those battling it out on stage. I suspect there are sub-groups that actually exist for that purpose alone. It might be amusing to design an experiment whereby we could determine precisely what it would take to piss one of them off to the point of spontaneous and decisive action.

Meanwhile, each Republican will be whatever he, she, or it decides, each Democrat will be whatever he, she, or it decides, each Whatever will be whatever he, she, or whatever decides, and the rest will stay home to play darts with the cat, or rock-paper-scissors (BB gun at the ready) with the neighbor’s dog who has that “I think I’ll take a crap on THAT side of the fence today” look about him…

 

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and other Bovine Byproducts ….

I don’t suppose I am the only one annoyed by the little disclaimers and yeah-buts one must agree to in order to enjoy a better experience on any particular internet website. Or not. Many of them just note in a microscopic, light grey font that even the simple act of arriving at the sacred URL, whether by intent or by accident, constitutes an eternal, all encompassing, irreversible contract permitting unknown persons or entities unlimited access to one’s resume, diary, and underwear drawer. That makes me wonder if the simple act of showing up within view of the doorway (maybe they have one of those door bell camera gadgets), whether one knocks or not, only momentarily precedes the arrival of an overweight 18-wheeler packed to the nines with every scrap of the clueless web surfer’s life story.

I don’t believe I’m overstating the circumstance. Have you ever actually tried to read the “terms of service”? Of course not, and even if somebody has made such an effort, I doubt they understood a word of it. I’d rather attempt a boot camp obstacle course hopping on one foot and blindfolded. Imagine. Forty pages of double-speak just to use an on-line program to convert kilograms to pounds, for example. Fortunately, I come from the age where we were taught how to perform such basic tasks with paper and pencil. Unfortunately, I forgot 90% of that stuff before my first grey hair entered stage right, and now, entering the downhill side of my mid seventies, I have a hard time remembering the other 10%.

That all must seem to just be a normal part of every day life to those who grew up with it, or were born into it. Those of us who spent our childhoods running around outdoors using sticks as imaginary weapons, or on rainy days sitting inside listening to Tom Mix on the radio instead of spending ten hours out of each day staring at a three by seven electronic brain-suck or watching prime-time cartoons about How to Sex a Turnip on TV tend to be a little puzzled by the whole Alice in Wonderland scene.

But that is only part of the story. This entire corrupted business model is mirrored by our government, although the greater portion of such shenanigans is shielded from public view, or flat-out denied in the interest of ”National Security” or “Public Safety.”

The Founding Fathers foresaw the inevitability of elements of government fighting to overcome the free reign of the people, and to enslave them, and they carefully prepared several interacting Checks and Balances hoping to prevent such processes. Perhaps it was an oversight, but apparently no such safeguard was made to prevent the dismantling or disabling of the Checks and Balances themselves.

Fast-forward about 210-240 years or so.

We have royalty in Washington, with the Executive Branch ruling by fiat, decree, and whim while the neutered Legislative Branch spends its time expanding its own benefits and salaries or practicing autoproctology with their thumbs. This perpetual motion machine is diligently maintained by the “Men Behind the Curtain”, only known as “They” even to those who serve them, and generally not even known of at all by the “people,” who are farmed as “fuel” for the whole thing.

Once again, we have an election year upon us, a Bread and Circuses pap served up to represent a changing of the guard and the illusion of reform. In truth, little changes, with the possible exception of the sheets and tchotchkes in the White House, and a few seats in the erstwhile Congress, where naughty boys and girls who wouldn’t toe the line may be sent to their rooms without supper or reelection.

There is little disagreement about the system being damaged if not broken, but there is also little or no harmony when it comes to responding with constructive ideas for repairing what is broken and expelling those doing the breaking. Instead, there is a cacophony of blaming, slandering, and other negative “trash talk” exchanges with little in the way of concrete strategies for leading the nation forward.

I try to be optimistic, though. After all, a house can be neglected and abused for decades, or even a century I imagine, yet still not be too far gone to be rehabilitated and given a fresh, new look. Not too many years ago, I drove down to visit my late cousin in the town where that branch of my family had been for more than 200 years. I passed by the house I remember my grandparents living in some seventy years ago, and it’s present owner was “rehabbing” the old house, having stripped it right down to the basic beams and framing! A later trip to the same area revealed that the project had been a great success, and without changing the original look of the place at all.

Similarly, while it might need to be stripped down to the basic beams and framing in selected areas, I firmly believe such a project to undo the ravages of time and human nature suffered by our very system of self governance would be a rousing success. It could put a bright new face on our nation, more like the one our forebears envisioned.

The measure and quality of our freedom in matters of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as guaranteed to the people 240 years ago, can only be described honestly and accurately as they are observed and experienced by the people of the United States themselves. The role of government in this matter is to protect those rights, not to redefine them.

If we are able to learn from history, and make the necessary repairs and corrections without sacrificing the fundamental framework, without trying to “rewrite” or reinvent the Constitution and it’s first ten Amendments, perhaps our descendants will enjoy the same great benefits that we have enjoyed without having to face the same self-made threats to their futures that we seem to be encountering today.

 

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…and the dog fights….

Is it me, or is this one of the most mean spirited political periods in a very long time? I can only speak to what I can remember, and then only to the parts of my life during which I was aware of the political universe, and even then again only to those times when I actually gave a toot about it. As for that period when I could say I understood it enough to offer an informed opinion about politics, I guess I’m still working on that.

I try to approach it from a perspective in which I think I am informed enough. I majored in psychology in college because I had a lot of curiosity about what makes people tick, and because it required the least math. I peek out from under that rock and proceed cautiously.

So, from a behavioral perspective, one could say the shit-storm we are currently participating in is essentially “normal,” only more so. People are many things, and those things tend to be variably unstable, depending on the individual and the moment. At the present time, the atmosphere is highly energized, so those who tend to be angry are angrier and those who tend to be generally calm are struggling to remain so. Throughout history, to whatever extent chronicles of any given time can be trusted to be reasonably accurate and of minimal bias, some periods stand out more than others. If I were to caricature our present time, I would draw two sets of hands facing each other, each with one hand clenched into a fist and the other clenched into a pointing gesture aimed aggressively at the opposing pair. This is neither a discussion nor a competition. This is combat.

I would suggest that those who could honestly state that they are focused on what might be best for the country from an informed position are the few. Actually, I can’t seem to think of any right now. I think most have memorized the chants of their team and echo them by rote, with passion, conviction, and immunity to pain or logic. The confrontations are about symbols, the decisions about whether to vigorously assault or to join with in religious unity, a contract made on the basis of a word on a name tag or the color of one’s hat rather than on an exchange of ideas. This not a time of civil disagreement; it is a time within which killing the messenger is the only option to conditional sainthood.

I observe the field and pronounce my judgment, but how certain am I that I am the one wearing the white hat?

Depends. I’ve noticed that the longer I have the podium, the more confident I become. Perhaps this is why it can be so difficult to actually listen to someone else doing the same thing. Somebody “listening” under such circumstances may resemble a child pacing about trying to avoid or postpone the wetting of his pants.

Like most, I can orate learnedly to the air or any poor soul stuck in front of me when I’m back-to the door, but the real test for me is whether or not I can deliver the same while looking myself in the eye as I stand before the bathroom mirror in the morning. It can be a grueling mid-term exam, and I highly recommend it.

Meanwhile, the current atmosphere is one of tension, aggression, polarized thinking, all to an extreme degree.  Most of those coveting the chance to sleep in the BIG bed are closet demagogues tossing treats to the parade watchers and making promises about free lunch for everyone without a word about whose pocket will be picked to pay for it all

Sadly, and perhaps the thing that alarms me the most, there is a stark absence of anyone appearing to have the potential for actually resolving the predominant challenges and problems of today. Other matters have a way of elbowing their way to the front of the line, re-election and funding being second only to breathing. The one who holds the key, or at least the pursestrings, to survival is the one whose boots get licked first, oaths be damned. Real life can be a cesspool of rationalizations sometimes.

The mobs of screaming, scowling or sneering, sign-pumping political junkies remind me of similar gatherings of hormone gorged adolescents thirsting en masse after some neon- haired psychopath clad in bloody squirrel pelts abusing a guitar with a chicken head while spewing “F” bombs into a microphone. Same shit, different pile.

We all, and I include myself, tend to be focused on the litany of shortcomings and evils of the “other” guy, but I think any hope of changing course or moving forward begins with making a conscious effort to avoid the cow pies rather than stomping on them. Instead of putting the opposition under the microscope, what we need is a person with enough self control, character, and truly independent thinking to move forward towards legitimately achievable goals without stopping at every Military Industrial ATM along the way and without being deterred by the inevitable murmured threats. Those who try to buck the phantom tyrants who have been allowed to pull the puppet strings for decades now tend to end up in the dirt, discredited, slimed with scandal, and worse.

Well, they need to buck harder.

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