Month: November 2018

What government course never taught

Consider the classes you had in school, the textbooks that were used, to teach you about American government.  What you learned couldn’t have been much further from the truth. The illusion created by those who have taught us, the illusion that most of those who have taught us take to be the truth, has had the effect of destroying democracy.  We do not vote ever on what is true and real.  We hold in our minds versions of truth that have been created for us by those who have something, often much, to gain from our being deceived and accepting the deception as the best we can get to shape our understanding.

The American government, the illusion of government by and of and for the people that is the common and constant notion of government most Americans possess, keeps the people in line, keeps the people from doing what a well informed people who believe in the value of legitimate democracy would do, rebel.

The architects of our modern government did not build what they built for the good of the people.  They built what they built out of greed for money and power and a profound kind of cynicism that has come to be understood as the proper state of consciousness for those who wish to be truly successful.

These cynical, greedy, deceivers of public and owners of our politicians and our politics are now being exposed.  That their exposure will in anyway have an effect on the game they created to insure themselves to be the winners in our politics, the owners of our government, the only players with any real chance of winning, is another illusion that will allow them to win even in their losing.  Their people, their family and friends will fill the positions in the scheme they leave vacant while serving their terms, if they serve terms, and the money and power will continue to flow where it has been directed to flow for so very long a time now that few know of any other direction to consider.  “It is what it is.”

So, Roger and Paul and Charlie (he really is no angel) and the prodigy of Mr. Atwater and Mr. Ails and, yes, Mr. Schumer and Ms. Peolosi and all the others who have succeeded at politics has also succeeded in making people think that what they have put in motion is irreversible and it is irreversible unless people being to reject so much of what they have learned and use their minds to learn for once what is true.

Then there would be hope for something better.  Unlearning what one has come to be convinced is true is at least as hard as learning something new.

I published this on FB and I am going to re-publish it because I think the issue I posted to acknowledge is one that is critical to understand even if by understanding it confidence in the integrity of our democracy is diminished.  That confidence should be diminished severely if confidence is built on illusion and here, the illusion upon which people base their trust in the American system needs to be acknowledged as such, an illusion that causes people to believe that despite its flaws, it actually does work.  That is wrong and most of us know it but do not want to acknowledge the truth because of urgency for radical change that the truth would reveal.  When there is a system in which only two parties are viable and neither really advocates for what is needed, what is truly good and right and, worse, when the only two viable options are so much like one another that choice is but an illusion, then that system is not at all a functional democratic one.  The truth is, because only the democratic party and the republican party are viable political parties in our system, there is no democracy because, if they are too much alike and offer too little in the way of meaningful options, then the people’s voice is so limited as to mean virtually nothing.  Our political parties serve but one cause, really, and that is an “American way” that works to serve but a few well, some adequately enough to keep them rooting for the system, and many now well enough, these without enough to really have a voice in the system.

So, when I read of how well the powerful of the parties get along and how they respect one another well even after the one or the other has acted in atrocious ways, has hurt, even killed hundreds and thousands needlessly, has worked to corrupt the system in consequential ways, I have to think of the kind of meaningful and consequential collusion in which they are truly involved.  Thus, I see the Obama’s wonderful friendship with the Bushes and the Clintons show of respect for Henry Kissinger and their attendance at Trump’s wedding party to be something more than letting bygones be bygones because I have to believe that they know of evil pasts and can embrace those who have done evil and are evil in a sincere and compassionate manner.  This, in my mind, says that they have no compassion for those harmed by the doers of evil deeds.

So, this FB posting:

Does anyone remember the use Mr. Bush made of the military? Does anyone care about what transpired during the war Bush made with Iraq? Does anyone remember the lies that led to the support that allowed Mr. Bush to put American troops in harms way and forced them, by order, to kill thousands and thousands of people in a foreign country far, far away from our borders. This is pure political bullshit. Bush did more to harm than he ever could to help those who would become veterans of his pathetically illicit war. So all is healed now and G. W. Bush receives a medal from Joe Biden for his contribution to liberty. Everything is not just a little bit upside down. It is absurd.

CNN: LIVE: Biden presents Bushs with Liberty Medal

The 2018 Liberty Medal Ceremony

The National Constitution Center announced it will award the annual Liberty Medal to President George W. Bush and former first lady Mrs. Laura Bush for their commitment to veterans. The award will be presented by former Vice President Joe Biden, Chair of the National Constitution Center’s Board of Trustees, at the 30th Annual Liberty Medal Ceremony on November 11, 2018 at 5 p.m. EST at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

We have been catapulted out of the realm of the reasonable and into very sick civic space where many believe that guns should be available to all who have not been proven to be mentally incapable of using a gun in a reasonable manner. Anyone who believes this to be sane policy should be on the list of those who need to be examined before being allowed to possess a deadly weapon. Those who are mentally ill often are not certified as such and they do not tell those who serve them that they are mentally ill, particularly when attempting to purchasing items that should not be in the hands of those who are not rational in their thinking and actions. Our society shows serious signs of suffering from collective mental debility each time one of these frequent events occurs and nothing is done to prevent them happening into the future. We have a long way to go to get close to sane.

A decent political party would raise taxes so that all could share the nation’s wealth. It would be laser focused on eliminating poverty and advocate for a living wage, good health care for all whatever the cost. It would force the creation of an excellent educational system that would offer all the opportunity to grow to their intellectual potential and it would do this by attracting the best and brightest to teach by offering excellent pay, great benefits, and superb working conditions (how the fuck can it be that this isn’t the way things are now and how could it be that this is not a top list priority of some political party?), teachers who would not teach capitalism and a phony form of democracy that serves a few and screws over the rest. it would force the development of decent infrastructure that would eliminate the problems that the current creates: high speed train lines (no matter how hard the airline industry would fight against it) that make it affordable and convenient for people to move from place to place, everyone the opportunity to be where things are happening and where nothing but birds and bees doing their things are happening. Consider the absurdity of the fact that most would take such suggestions to be absurd, not because they are unreasonable but because we live in a society in which the absurd has devastated our ability to think reasonably.