A Martian’s Voyage to Planet Earth

Once there was a Martian, green-skinned and with orange leopard polka dots on his arms and face as he throttled down and glided smoothly through the outer tangent of earth’s atmosphere in his exploratory mini space ship. Coming in closer he saw the great blue marble of a planet with all its silvery clouds. He smiled as he selected an orbital trajectory for his cursory preview of planet earth. He had all the latest equipment, e.g., atomic cameras that could see through anything, including close-ups that would rival earth’s own electron microscopes. Such cameras could also penetrate solid matter, and the little green Martian could see Washington, D.C., Moscow and Beijing all at the same time. Oh, and did I mention that his spaceship was also invisible both to the human eye and to earth’s most sophisticated radar detectors? And that his mission was to write his PhD Dissertation on the evolution of earthlings and their fitness for survival and continuing the Homo sapiens specie?

He selected a quintessential golden laser heat detector as his first choice to probe the activity on the blue planet. Selecting an easterly orbit, the Martian, snug in his invisible little ship, passed over South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. To the far north he noticed much heat and fire generated in the desserts of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many explosions took place constantly without a pause, without a sound, and he realized immediately that these millions of white and red light flashes registering on the heat-o-meter were high- explosive chemicals igniting as armies of humans clashed in skirmishes on the ground, air, and sea in that vast area of planet earth. There were tanks and machines and soldiers, battling it out in cities and in the sandy wildernesses. Smart bombs laser-guided from aircraft, Tomahawk Missiles, and vast numbers of artillery shells exploded round the clock, night and day. His instruments saw up close how the red liquid life force streamed out of the wounded men, soldiers, women, and children and turned them into corpses in the dirt. Special, close-up, movement detection radar gave him a blow-by-blow view of the war maneuvers and of the humans engaged in mortal combat. Curious as to what events might have brought humans to such a brink of mutual and total destruction, the alien pondered it all. He checked his historical records of planet earth for clues to the savage behavior of these earthlings. He would study it more before entering the earth’s atmosphere.

It seemed plain enough to this little green visitor that such a clash had specific causes such as the older newspaper accounts of the airplanes that crashed into the NYC Twin Towers about 11 earth-years ago. Of course the emotion of revenge had been known to Mars, too, for eons, so he could understand the need to set the books straight. But by blowing each other up? Why some of the most heinous punishment ever doled out on the red planet was a sentence to spend a few earth-weeks working as a slave for your ex mother-in-law. That seemed a far worse punishment than going to hell in the mind of a Martian.

The behavior of these bizarre creatures called humans intrigued him. They seem to revel in heating up the planet with exploding fire weapons all over the globe. Why? It seemed conclusive to him that earthlings were captured by what Martians called “robba yo asspocketa.” In other words, “religion.” Yep. 

On several subsequent orbital passes the alien attempted to connect the dots. He witnessed several religious television programs that seemed dedicated to gathering trillions of earth dollars as ransom money for an earthling’s being able to pass into the eternal life of the kingdom of heaven. All you had to do was tithe, contribute even bigger bucks for bigger favors in the afterworld, and you were set up for the future life in heaven for all of immortality. In addition, the television preachers all had their enemies. These were the devil religions skillfully chosen to demonize and attack and even destroy. Many Christians were taught by earth Evangelists like Franklin Graham to preempt the teachings of Jesus. Instead of loving thy brother as Jesus had taught, you as a Christian should beware the Muslim Brotherhood that Graham swears is out to destroy us Christians. And Christians believed that Muslims were out to kill all Christians as a duty of their religion as defined in their holy book, the Koran. Ask any earthling about all the virgins a Muslim might be awarded for blowing up non-believers such as Christians.

This paradox confused the Martian. What was the truth? Who hated who and why? Upon further study, the Martian found that nobody knew what truth was. Truth was an illusion. It was what you could convince your fellow earthlings to believe and to accept as truth. Nothing to do with reality or rational thought behind it. Truth was whatever these religious leaders could convince their followers to accept. As they laughed all the way to the television studios in their Bentleys and Mercedes automobiles.

The Martian discovered the same dishonest defect with politics and government on planet earth. No one knew the truth nor cared. What was paramount was how much money a politician could gather to get elected to office. Ifen he could present a Billy Bob image of himself on camera to where you would want to have a beer with him. Lordy. And getting there the more money a politician the more lies money could buy. And the more people would tend to hear it enough times that they would swear it was the truth. Bingo. And more money meant more votes. Truth was what you could convince earthlings to believe. And money was the key to success. Every time. In every country on planet earth.

And so it was with politics, power, and nations who went to war on the planet earth. A great wrong was created by one country against another, and all the humans from the wronged country would close ranks against the country who committed the fault or the crime. Why earthlings even learned how to hate countries who would not agree with or support them, France, for instance. When America invaded Iraq and France would not allow the United States to fly over its own country to conduct operations in Iraq, Americans began to hate the French. Changed the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries. I know that had to hurt the French.

Martians knew very well the ancient history of serving unseen religious spirits to kill their fellow Martians. These spirits told them to kill, conquer, steal all the gold and oil (Mars never had much of either). Or so they believed at a time very long ago. As on earth, no Martian ever heard these unseen gods speak or saw them, if the truth were known. But on Mars it was once as easy as it is on earth to fool the intelligent organisms to believe the lies, follow a cultish religion, to follow religious leaders, give them most all their money, and to kill your fellow creatures of your own kind.

This discovery intrigued the little Martian. As he descended in many more orbitals toward the earth’s surface, he tuned into earth television stations to study the eye of religious leaders and evangelists who moved billions of humans to obey whatever the particular creed demanded.

Earthlings were angry all right. And in showing their anger and revenge they were rapidly destroying their home planet earth. The pyrotechnic heating up of the planet created numerous problems. The water was evaporating for one. And the greenhouse effect of polluting planet earth with extra heat each year and big increases in the normal amounts of carbon dioxide compounded earth’s problems. Much of this heat was felt by the big smokestack industries of planet earth as well. Instead of harnessing the power of the sun as Mars had done millions of earth years before, earth still relied on burning fossil fuels for the production of electric power. Of course this added heating up of the planet did a lot to create new problems, e.g., unclean air for all earth’s respiratory creatures to breathe. Millions of new cancers each year became the norm. 

Another catastrophic effect insured that every sea and freshwater creature on planet earth inherited the acid rain, coal ash, and other unfiltered smokestack earth factories became dangerously polluted in the fatty tissues with the element Mercury. Today these pollutants have an affinity for the fatty tissues of fish. Knowing this, the alien soon found on earth’s Internet, caused the fish and food regulatory agencies all over the world to issue scary warnings. No more than a few ounces of fish could be eaten by earthlings per earth month. And in some cases such as in pregnant earth women, they could eat none at all. The element Mercury, the Martian knew, would produce brain damage and cause serious birth defects regardless of biological anatomical differences between species of all creatures, including those from other planets and galaxies in the vast universe.

And why would earthlings choose to destroy their neighbors by destroying their planet and their race as well? By employing nuclear-tipped artillery shells why would these earthlings choose to needlessly produce radioactive isotopes that would be scattered about the planet and human backyards, water sources for billions of years? Were earthlings not the stewards of their own environment and their own kind?

It had been a long journey so far for the Martian. For the next few orbits he might relax and drift into sleep above the blue marble backdrop outside his port hole. He would doze off thinking on his discoveries and attempting to reconcile many of the inconsistencies and paradoxes of the human race. He would sleep on it.

The New American Conscience: A Short Study in Immorality, Part I

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” -  So said Vice President Dick Cheney on camera during a Bush II Cabinet meeting.  This meant that continuing deficit spending to justify attacking and occupying Iraq was just peachy keen.  Borrow and spend trillions of dollars and find no WMDs found yet is dismaying to say the least.  But those members of the “Axis of Evil” as Bush called them were fair game to do whatever it takes.  Sounds sort of Biblical, doesn’t it?  So no expense was too high the White House and the Pentagon jointly decided.  Deficits really don’t matter. 

So up went the National Debt another $4 Trillion!  It only took 8 years.  So who profited from the “Decider’s” self-righteous judgments which later led to wars and long stints of boots on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq?  Why the Military Industrial Complex did.  War corporations who build software and hardware for drones, tracking beams for missiles, ammunition, and tank artillery shells tipped with Uranium 238.  Looks like Ike was right.  Trillions of dollars spent on war, especially when the Complex has a captive government like Uncle Sam with a well-oiled printing press at the Fed, and that ain’t chopped liver.

Sure, Uranium 238 is radioactive and a real problem.  The US decision to use this radioactive isotope in warfare in the desert sands of Kuwait and later, Iraq had a way of spreading this radioactive material not just to the four corners of Kuwait and Iraq but to the neighboring region as well.  Why did we use radioactive material to tip the large canon shells in the first place?  Well, it is a heavier element than lead, and will penetrate steel much easier than other metals used in a tipped shell.  The projectile will travel twice as far as conventional ones.  Plutonium would do just as well as the Uranium, but the expense would be too great, and terrorists might get a wild idea to try to harvest enough of this isotope to make a suitcase bomb.  Anyway, the U 238 has a half-life of 4.46 billion years, so what a wonderful legacy to leave the Iraqis with until the end of the world.  An Alpha Radiation Emitter, U 238 decays by naturally ejecting Alpha Particles (2 Protons and 2 Neutrons) continuously from the mass of U 238.  The tip of the shell penetrates the enemy armor, explodes, and burns all inside the tank alive.  The U 238 is blown to a fine ash and scatters to the four winds where it settles upon the sand.  There it picks up some Oxygen atoms (undergoes oxidation), becomes a compound (Uranium Oxide) and turns black.  The next big sandstorm lifts the radioactive residue and sand into the air, and it is breathed by every creature that breathes on the planet, including man.  Wherever the wind blows, particulates of the U 238 isotope lodge in the lungs.  There it will continue to spit out Alpha Particles which will ionize healthy lung tissue and cause an alteration in the physiology of the aspirating animal, given a little time.  Bottom line, most probably, lung cancer will be on the coroner’s report as the cause of death.  And all the rabbits and unsuspecting camels will never know why their terminal years are so void of quality as they struggle to breathe as their lungs react to the U 238, the irradiation of cellular tissue, and of course the cancer.

Wow.  Best cross Iraq off your vacation list.  But what about the people, the Iraqis who live and breathe there every day of their lives?  I wonder if the press will give new and multiple cases of cancer there much coverage.  It is such a shameful admission to make that we caused it by our own stupid abuse of our responsibility to not hurt the innocent.  But there are considerations.  There are reputations to consider and of course probable class action lawsuits in the making against the US.  And denials to make, ad infinitum.  Makes you wonder if we would use the same armor-piercing shells if we were attacked and found ourselves in a tank battle with the Chinese Army in the Nevada dessert.  Think Nevada real estate would tank in value even worse if the landscape were covered with a powdering of U 238?  I bet the Casinos would not like it very much.  You can bet that people would not go there anymore to pull the one-armed bandits.

Oh well, an opener pulling the curtain back on America’s cavalier use of radioactive materials in war is always an attention-getter.  We have needlessly delivered countless nuclear dirty bombs to an unsuspecting country of innocent people.  We have spread radioactive materials with a 4.5 billion year half-life so that human habitation will become limited and hazardous from here on out.  What were we thinking?  Or were we thinking at all?

http://iicph.org/du_for_europe_nov_2000  Note:  Some Notable Biological Concerns of using Nuclear-Tipped Artillery Shells

One could criticize without much opposition.  Bottom line, why employ Uranium-tipped shells to pierce enemy tank armor in the first place?  Why not just set the enemy tanks on fire with Napalm, White Phosphorus, or other such means not associated with nuclear radiation or long term decontamination procedures required to restore the land to accommodate human habitation?  Every time the wind blows and especially during sandstorms there will be no escape from the airborne radiation.  Swell.  Did the Pentagon fall and hit their head?

I mean it’s not like we didn’t have other superior weaponry such as aircraft with smart bombs, drones with hellfire missiles, Tomahawk Missiles, you know, the usual arsenal, right?  You think that might be one of the reasons some countries overseas (including allies of the United States) might be interested in nabbing some of our leaders for war crimes if they ever set foot on the wrong soil.  Like Spain or Italy, perhaps?

Speaking of an uncaring attitude coming from the USA how about them mercenary Blackwater contractors that shot up Iraqi civilians perhaps just for fun and target practice?  And no punishment provisions for their transgressions got much of a ho-hum from the American press or American people.  And the U.S. courts whitewashed it all to make it look like it was not the Blackwater mercenaries fault.  Yet videos sometimes tell a lot about the nature of a man or the organization he works for. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn7FUF-lINs  Note:  Where there’s smoke there’s Blackwater

Lordy, what would John Wayne say to that?  US judges dismissing charges and all, made Blackwater seem bulletproof and protected from the very seat of our government.  Paid over 5 times as much as an uniformed soldier of the United States, Blackwater guns for hire were worth the $1 Billion Uncle Sam paid its founder and owner Erik Prince, right?  Not.  But our Constitution says mercenaries may be hired to fight overseas wars with tight stipulations.  They can be used for no longer than a 2-year period, and must be subject to other regulations and rules as defined by those who command these mercenary armies.  To pay them 5 times the normal pay as real American soldiers is ludicrous.  Because a military draft these days is politically incorrect, it should be disallowed for a president to fill in the gaps with hired mercenaries like Blackwater provides.  Bush hired them and Obama has increased their numbers, only the organization no longer goes by the name of Blackwater. 

To allow the president to hire at will militias answerable only to him is the stuff revolutions are made of.  It, like nuclear-tipped artillery shells is totally unnecessary and wrong.  And innocent people whether taxed for the increased cost of waging war or innocents shelled by unmonitored bullets from the guns of mercenaries is anything but humane.  It is not befitting of a country who believes in freedom and fair dealing for all peoples.  The Founding Fathers would shudder at the phoniness and attempted justification of it all.  And the stench of depravity that goes with embracing such a practice that seeks to fool honest taxpayers into hurting innocent people.  Isn’t that what bin Laden did to us on 911? 

Our National Debt and Other Forms of Human Madness: How Did We Get Here?

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.” -  So said Vice President Dick Cheney in a Bush II Cabinet meeting.  This meant that continued deficit spending to justify attacking members of Bush’s declared enemies of the United States, namely Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, did not matter.  Ka-Ching!  Up went the National Debt another $4 Trillion!  Halliburton and many other military contractors got filthy rich.  So what was this new America who saw bogey men behind every bush?  Rather I wish that the American people could have seen the “bugger” man behind the Bush in the White House. 

Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons and other forms of WMDs pointed at American cities?  Bush proclaimed this as fact in his televised state of the union address right before attacking Iraq, remember?  Despite the Brits saying the intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein attempting to buy Uranium from Niger were bogus?  Despite CIA intelligence advising strongly about Bush’s saying nothing of the sort (which Bush disregarded and did anyway).

Fooling your fellow countrymen into believing lies is how it always begins.  This trauma-bonded use of fear begets $500 hammers being sold to the U. S. Government and no one objecting.  Let me explain.  World leaders historically found an enemy.  It is evil posing as essence Hitler found the Jews who found around 7 Million Jews to torture and kill while building up his war machine and empire.  Germans might accept that Jews were as evil as Muslims have become to many Billy Bobs right here today in the land of the free. 

Stalin found his fellow countrymen to be the enemy (all 30 million of them who died in Stalin’s infamous Purge).  Yes, Stalin killed them all.  An enemy is an asset to taking power, wielding it, and maintaining it. An enemy generates the manufacture of guns, arms, militias, planes, tanks, ships, and now missiles and laser-directed smart bombs with which to destroy the enemy.  Enemies beget hatred.  All the citizens in Big Brother’s world were being told that Oceania was the enemy.  Until it became more lucrative to have Oceania become the best ally ever.  Then you get a new enemy. 

All the while when you have an enemy, the cash register is always ringing with BIG expenditures because the people are afraid for their very lives.  Is it any wonder that many of the U.S. military contracts to build arms or provide services have become traditionally NO-BID contracts to bill Uncle Sam for?  I mean, how many contractors could Reagan have hired to build the Star Wars missile defense initiative (which after crossing the palms of many before Star Wars was abandoned)?  After all, weren’t we Americans dedicated to defeating Russia who Reagan branded the Evil Empire?  It sounded a lot like Reagan was doing the work of God Almighty, and it was a great acting job.  It made military industrial complex corporations rich.  Reagan saw to it that Congress borrowed and spent over $3 Trillion which got pasted to our existing National Debt.  How can you argue with someone doing the work of God?  But we weren’t at war during his 8 years, you might say.  The amount spent got tacked onto the National Debt.  Plus all the interest it has caused to be spent since Reagan left office over 24 years ago!

The answer is you can’t allow too many bids because of the technology limitations of the horde of contractors who might want to bid on doing the work.  As a result usually only one contractor gets the job and no further bidding is allowed.  It makes for a closed fraternity of crony capitalists who pay for high status and receive big bucks from key government officials.  And the latter gets hefty campaign contributions to insure their ongoing ability to steal the big money from the United
States Treasury.  In short, the people. 

Quite a brotherhood of back-scratchers, eh?  Further, who in Uncle Sam’s government would dare question such an exalted defense contractor if the contractor charges $500 for a hammer?  I speak figuratively because all and every of the items this NO-BID contractor charges Uncle Sam are so inflated.  And no such exaggeration of prices charged is ever challenged.  Why not?  Well we got to trust the honesty of these military industrial complex corporations who are serving our common good by helping us defeat our nation’s enemies.  First, you got to have an enemy.  Terrorists provided the most hated and greatest enemy the United States ever had.  The graphic and memorable violence of 911 gave us the needed collective mindset to spend much more on protecting our own country and families from death and destruction from those who were different from us.

And it’s okay that we are paying $500 for a single hammer.  Senator William Proxmire who authored the famous “Golden Fleece” Award was as much an aberration as other noted whistle-blowers on government stealing and maleficence, e.g., Ron Paul.  Both men were effectively demonized and put out to the political pasture of being eccentric candidates who would never be elected to high office in Washington.  Trouble is, they knew all too well the rules of the game.  And because they were not willing to play, they were toast, need there be more said?

Is it only a coincidence that in lieu of the plunge and deterioration in housing prices in much of America, that Washington, D.C. real estate values hang tough and continue to rise?

Is it immoral for military contractors to be in cahoots with government to where the people who pay taxes are charged $500 for a toilet seat?  Have we lost our minds?  And when the government runs out of money to buy one should the congressmen who borrowed and spent $500 for a toilet seat by the millions  be directed to the nearest tree with a newspaper and nothing to sit on when the urge hits him?

The world and the United States have borrowed and spent themselves into deep debt that can never be repaid.  Or if Bernanke and the Fed continues to print more dollars out of thin air and bread zooms to $10 a loaf and gas to $14 a gallon the U.S. can surely pay a lot more off its staggering and swelling debt with cheaper dollars that have been falsely and deceptively inflated.   Poor old Greece doesn’t have the ability to print its own money so it will probably just sink into the sea much like Atlantis and dine with Neptune.  Cease to exist.  But the USA can use trickery for a while at least to keep printing new life into its citizens with newly-created Monopoly dollars, right?

American government has become so addicted to borrowing and spending tax dollars that without the loans afforded us by China and Japan and other world countries, we would certainly default on our loans and our obligations such as congressional pay, Social Security, Medicare, and other government outlays of cash payment obligations.  The Military Industrial Complex would have to find a new sucker sovereign country to get in bed with, say, maybe China.  Maybe they need to get themselves some new ships, planes, and laser-guided missiles in case push ever comes to shove in this economic perversion that has become typical of the world.

Bottom line, it is the borrowing and spending and living beyond our means that is the problem.  “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”  What a gem.  So if our country runs out of the money necessary to pay its citizens military retirement benefits or government pensions in general, who will get cut first?  Uncle Edgar on Social Security?  Will all the congressmen and government workers in D.C. pack it in and quit their lucrative jobs and sing ‘Turn out the Light, the Party’s Over?’  Maybe.  When Limbaugh becomes a Democrat and takes the cure for drugs.  Will the Military Industrial Complex indeed move to China and put out their shingles there?  Or maybe in Russia?  Is this an exercise in just how absurd one can conceive it to be or what?

But make no mistake about the cause of our dilemma with the dollar, our millions of underwater houses just walked away from, and the prospect of getting your government Social Security check cut in half, just for openers.  Paul Ryan ain’t going to be the one to get his lifetime retirement cut.  First you got to cut the firemen, the policemen, and the teachers.  You know, the common folk.  The cause of this great study in mass delusions we have come to call modern American economics began with borrowing money you did not have and then trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear by paying interest for the money borrowed until the day you die.  Reagan and Bush II racked up a total of $7 Trillion during their terms as presidents.  The present National Debt is $15 Trillion.  Do the math.  Will the big-spenders please stand up?  And tell us why they spent half of all the money owed in our massive National Debt?  Since George Washington first took office?

So what’s America’s problem?

It’s the borrowing, stupid. 

Why People Vote the Way They Do: Trying to Make Some Sense of it All-Part II

Over the years I have enjoyed watching voters who thought that candidates like Reagan would best serve the people of America.  He appealed to the masses, the common working people, and he did a fine job of convincing Billy Bob from Cut-And-Shoot, Texas to vote for him.  So what did Billy Bob get out of it?  Well, in the last episode (Part I) we saw that Billy Bob was a welder’s helper who had a pretty good union job until Reagan proved unions were dispensable by firing all the Air Traffic Controllers.  The shock waves trickled on down and finally Billy Bob found himself in a quandary when he got replaced by a cheaper-wage illegal, fresh up from the border.  Unions became unnecessary all of a sudden.  So when Billy Bob went looking for another job he found that now he had to compete with the cheaper labor available from the other side of the Rio Grande.  So as we saw in Part I Billy Bob had to let his air boat go back to the bank, no more alligator night hunts to supplement no income.  And that refinery job he was hopin’ to get thanks to his sister’s brother Buford just up and vanished along with that $18 an hour and lots of overtime.  Lordy, did anybody see that Mack Truck coming?

Bottom line Billy Bob should have known that voting for Reagan was akin to shooting himself in the big toe.  Those who benefitted most from Reagan were the Military Industrial Complex who Reagan helped by borrowing and spending $3 Trillion more and increasing our National Debt by that same figure.  And those Reagan benefitted returned the favor in kind with Billions of dollars funneled into his private campaign fund or the coffers of the RNC. 

Sam Walton and the Bush family would have benefitted by voting for Reagan, and they did just that.  So did Halliburton and Dick Cheney (who said ‘Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.’?).  In truth deficits did not matter to Cheney or Halliburton.  Why not?  Well the Big H received the money Reagan’s dutiful lapdog Congress borrowed and spent to build up the military. Halliburton was the manufacturer and provider of goods and services to Uncle Sam. And even though it was borrowed money, Halliburton and all their no-bid Military Industrial Complex cronies took it in their hot fists and ran.  Left us common taxpayers and Billy Bob flat-footed.  Like, in holding the bag.  So Billy Bob, at least in his own best financial interests, shouldn’t have voted for Reagan.  He should have voted for Mondale and suffered in silence.  Shucks, he could have kept his rifles,  bullets, and pickup with a nice gun rack in the back glass.  Why make such a big fuss when you get to keep all your firearms anyhow and you don’t have to shoot yourself in the foot?

People vote for the strangest reasons many of which do not serve their economic stations in life.  Billy Bob, see, was one of them fellers who voted for George W. Bush ‘cause he was the kind of president Billy Bob would want to have a beer with.  You know, the smiling, back-slappin’ good ol’ boy that caught a world and Texas state record White Perch on his Crawford ranch? 

Truth is Bush did not know his fish.  He lied.  But would that keep Billy Bob from pulling the lever for Bush come Election Day?  Shoot no, ‘cause it don’t matter if Bush knows his fish and stretches the truth to a nervous world that maybe chuckles at his buffoonery and Black Belt degree of terminal Dumbass.  But it was no joke when Bush attacked Iraq.  That was real alright.  And years later after the country was bombed, broken, and dismantled, we must ask, “Was stretching the truth to justify attacking and occupying Iraq just as excusable as Bush’s stretching the truth about his world-record White Perch?”  One was harmful to humanity, and the other was not.  But a lie is still a lie, and is an essential part of proven liar's moral anatomy.  And big or small, the lie must get out.  It is a part of a liar's soul and what he sees the world to be:  like, maybe a bunch of chumps for the clipping?   It tells you who he is from the git-go. 

Is it just me, or does the Bush family’s purchase of 200,000 acres of mineral-rich, with unlimited fresh water resources and farmland in Paraguay seem a bit out of the ordinary?  Or that a 400-man US Marine air base was created next door by Poppy many years ago?  Or that Paraguay is a country with no-extradition laws on the books?

But thousands of deaths later and years of occupation what did we accomplish, and did it matter to the American voter come election time?  Did the voters hold Bush accountable for his head fakes and lies that cost the taxpayers Trillions of dollars more, borrowed from the Chinese and spent to defend us from terrorists in Iraq that Bush said, had weapons of mass destruction pointed at U.S. cities?  Not really.  Nobody, including Bush, was ever held accountable for causing such a destruction of cities, countries, of our own men and women, and of our very own currency from the borrowing and spending for war.  And are we better off for it?  Is Iraq?  I say we are far worse off and so is Iraq now that al Qaeda has been given a free reign to set up shop there.

So why do people vote for such villains and all their war-borrowing-and-spending skullduggery that causes Americans to lose their homes, their jobs, and have to walk the financial plank?  Ask any political consultant. 

It’s the money. 

It’s always the money.  What money, one might ask?  The millions of dollars collected by candidates for their reelection campaigns.  The millions of dollars in Political Action Committees for political party campaigns.  Remember the Swift Boaters who blew John Kerry out of the water in the presidential race of 2004?  Money is king when it comes to effectively swaying voter opinion, and that spells polls.  The Houston billionaire, John Moore, paid millions to discredit John Kerry’s honorable service as a Swift Boat commander in the Viet Nam War.  The term “Swiftboating” was born.  It is the deliberate attempt to prove chicanery and the lies of a person running for office, to discredit him so that he will lose.  This hit money that John Moore gave toward the destruction of John Kerry as a viable candidate for president proved effective.  Kerry lost. 

Forget the truth.  The man who volunteered for combat and received more than one Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for bravery under fire was mocked into a corner of dishonor, and he lost the election.  He lost to George W. Bush who went AWOL during the Viet Nam War and had marked “Do Not Volunteer” for duty overseas.  Bush got a cushy Texas Air Guard (wave the magic wand) commission thanks to Poppy and his connections.  There, Bush would never see combat.  Money does it every time.  It makes a believer out of Billy Bob and other voters who do not have the time to research the truth.  Money can make a hero a coward and a coward a hero.  The more money, the better chance a candidate has of being elected or reelected to office.  Truth doesn’t matter, and it never did.  Given enough money you can produce and run ads that make everything seem real when it is not.  And those ads, mostly 30 second spots on TV, control elections and who will rule our land.

The money also bought very effective ads in the way of Band Aids with Purple Hearts painted on them so that the candidates to the Republican National Convention could wear them in plain view to discredit John Kerry’s duly awarded Purple Heart medals.  That bit of tasteless display said it all:  Kerry received medals that were not due him because they were little scratches, to be covered up by mere Band Aides.  It was a new low in American politics.  But it was effective.  To top it all off Arnold Swartzenegger gave the Keynote address and told the world that a vote for John Kerry was a vote for a “girlie man.”  That even set a newer low, but it was all effective.  Bush won.  So America had to suffer a president with only a 92 IQ for a second term.

If we care to address the truth and elect good officials who will work in the interest of ALL the people we must first look at ourselves.  A long look in the mirror and some self-evaluation has to reveal that we don’t really know shit from Shinola about the person we are voting for other than what television campaign ads tells us to believe.  No offense intended.  I include myself in that analogy, so please, let us do some homework.  Realize that you and I as a competent voters have never looked at a person’s voting record in order to make an intelligent decision to see if this guy or gal running for office is for us.  Please ask yourself when was the last time you really took time out from a busy job and what little time you had to spend with your family to attend political rallies, discussions, or anything that would further your understanding of the candidates?  Try to resist the camera effect.  The camera hated Nixon, loved Kennedy, fell in love with Reagan, hated the cadaverous Kerry, and loved Bush.  So what does the camera have to do with voting for the right candidate?  Everything.  Hence, the perverted lack-of-reasoning for voting for the back-slapping good old boy George W. Bush, the dude you would like to have a beer with.

Can’t we voters see that television ads can make any and all claims, good and bad, about any candidate running for office?  Do we ever feel a bit lazy that we have not given it our best shot when we, due to other pressing considerations of life, just watch the talking heads on camera and subjectively decide on a candidate?  Or a breathtaking political ad?  If we do, aren’t we a bit chagrined to know that we have given our souls to the money behind the ads and not the candidate?  Can we admit that we may be making ourselves victims of mass hypnotization?  That we are just as confused and ambivalent to knowing the truth as was Pontius Pilate who asked Jesus, “What is truth?”

Look, if our National Debt soars greater than $15 Trillion this year and $17 Trillion the year after, who is to blame when we vote our subjective mind, our unconscious mind based on television ads paid for by massive amounts of money?  If we would admit it to ourselves, wouldn’t Ron Paul have a real shot at the presidency if he had the camera presence and the young looks of Romney?  And if that is a true statement then we need to reevaluate our reasons for voting as adults instead of bloody, unconscious adolescents.  And prosper as an intelligent, fiscally responsible nation once again.

Why People Vote the Way They Do: Trying to Make Some Sense of it All-Part I

Ever wonder what makes somebody pull the lever to the right or to the left?  Ever wish you could see the world through Andy Rooney eyes when he meanders about the highways of the mind as though on a quest for true understanding of one of life’s peculiar mysteries?

Ever wonder if the boys in the back room of the RNC and DNC care about the truth if each party has millions of dollars to fashion the very truth to their own liking?  You know, to where whichever candidate each party runs for high office will be able to pull it off and win?  So then they get their man and a bunch more they sponsored to fashion laws to benefit their large campaign contributors for high favors?  Like in letting Halliburton and the like have exclusive no-bid contracts for the Iraq War meals for soldiers, roads to be built, infrastructure to be repaired, the usual?  If enough money is thrown at a chosen candidate’s campaign war chest, wouldn’t it follow perhaps that those upper-crust contributors might get rewarded with a tax cut for the rich?  Like when Bush sponsored and his lap-dog Congress passed the $2 Trillion tax cut for the rich?  And Obama, years later, put his okay stamp on extending the Bush Tax Cut for the rich?  The richest taxpayer Americans got a return of real tax dollars of over $92,000.00 per year!  Must be nice.  You got yours, didn’t you?

Ever wonder if the written history of the Democrats exists in an Orwellian world where we were always at war with Oceania?  No, rather we were always allies with Oceania, wasn’t that the true history?  Or was it changed when it became more beneficial to the BIG$ for the history to be rewritten?

Does the true history really matter if your candidate wins?  Does the truth play an important part in the why a candidate gets reelected?  If you follow the money all you need do is stop right there.  No.  Absolutely the truth does not matter.  The money does.  Voting is about the money.  It’s always about the money.  Candidates are about your ass pocketbook not your religious affiliation or views.  Your positions on Pro Choice or Pro Life change as political winds shift and change even within the same election or with the same candidate.  Take Romney.  Will you?  He is the ultimate changeling.  It is about the money.  And the smearing of church and state together is, I opine, only to get votes.  Reagan was a master when it came to television and the rehearsed line that made good old boy voters feel good.  And those votes are bought and paid for by the money trying to influence election outcomes. 

Don’t forget the Tea Party demonstrations in Washington, D.C. that Fox Propaganda Channel and the Koch Brothers of Wichita, KS and the world all sponsored.  If you are still trying to figger out just what the grass roots Tea Party is about, just ask one of them with a roving microphone on the streets.  They get memory lapse.  Their history comprehension is zero.  All they know is they are just plain folks bought and paid for bus tickets in hand to come down to the nation’s capitol and demonstrate against all the stuff the Democrats and Obama stand for, but they can’t be sure if asked any specific questions.  Sounds a bit like Sarah Palin, eh?  Déjà vu, all over again.  Those D.C. Tea Partiers had a great time in D.C. hotels, what with bus fare and hotel fare paid for by the Koch Bros., known ultra-conservative, right-wing nut cases deluxe.

When the Tea Bag Convention was held in Nashville, here come the busses, the airplanes, and all the no-nothing Billy Bobs and girlfriends and wives to support and cheer for Sarah Palin who gave the keynote speech at the convention.  All paid for by the Koch Bros., thank you very much, but hey what do you all stand for?  We know you are for cutting government spending on welfare programs just as long as the government does the right thing.  Like one of their signs on a stick said, “Keep your hands off my Social Security.”  Looks like the Tea Baggers are in for a surprise when the Koch’s tell them that the true purpose of the Tea Baggers, in cutting spending, is to blow up Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all Welfare, so the Koch’s and the rich can have the government and its tax dollars for themselves.  But don’t tell anybody.  Let the Tea Baggers continue to blast Obama for wanting to kill old people instead of paying for their terminal illnesses with Medicare and Medicaid.  One of their signs said, “Don’t Kill Grandma.  No Youth in Asia.”  Shouldn’t the Koch’s and their handlers hire an editor like for their stupid signs?  Or does it really not matter?

Ask the next Tea Bagger you meet if cutting spending means cutting the billions of dollars in the Pentagon Budget as well as in social programs.  It will get damn silent all of a sudden I would bet.  Nope, their rehearsed talking points don’t include the military, you know, the government entity that spends the most on sophisticated weapons and systems, like the stuff the Military Industrial Complex gets no-bid contracts to build billion-dollar airplanes and $500 toilet seats.  They nor Hannity, nor Limbaugh will be caught talking about their big-money sponsors when it comes to cutting government spending.

It is about the money, and all else is smoke and mirrors.  And you really don’t have to say anything intelligent to get Billy Bob to go along.  Just wrap the cause in the flag and pray for our country, amen.

All further dialogue, if well presented, is about which candidate can help you earn the most money by pursuing real measures to increase jobs, decrease taxes, increase human services, and be all things to all the voters.  Impossible, you say?  Not at all.  The $15 Trillion National Debt is proof that real money is an oxymoron.  But here in the good old USA you can crank up the presses and just print more.  Printing more money is the Fed’s number one job.  This funny money that dilutes the worth of the Treasury, the US economy, jobs, decimates a good standard of living and a respectable currency are all the rewards promises made by candidates and both parties to keep the plates spinning on sticks.  It is the grand illusion that perpetuates the belief that a dollar bill is just as good as it always was and still spends just as good.  And you don’t have to tell the truth to get there.

Maybe Congress should pass a law making it unconstitutional to print more money.  Think they would?  Ha!  See when the voters elect a candidate whom they expect to be honest and to serve the best interest of the people he represents, borrowing money (Trillions in the case of the federal government) to insure his success in keeping his promises is cheating.  Anybody can produce illusions of prosperity with an unlimited source of hard cash with which to act the part of the Wizard of Oz.  Without the smoke and mirrors, though, Toto proved the Wizard was a fake simply by pulling back the curtain.

Okay, so much for prologue.

All tags such as patriotism, a belief in God (Judeo-Christian preferred, to be politically correct nowadays), prayer in school, you know the drill, are mere props with which to pole vault over the election booth high bar to win elections.  And you vote according to who will help you make and keep the most money in your lifetime.  All else seems to be a huge crock.  Jerry Falwell was a means to an end to Reagan.  Despite all his high-toned words about the Bible and his hit lists he proclaimed to be in the best interest of the Almighty, if the Democrat bugger candidates were all expunged and replaced with God-fearing Republicans.  Made you sick to your moral conscience.

Over the years I have enjoyed watching voters who thought that candidates like Reagan would best serve the people of America.  He appealed to the masses, the common working people, and he did a fine job of convincing Billy Bob from Cut-And-Shoot, Texas to vote for him.  So what did Billy Bob get out of it?  Well, see, Billy Bob was a welder’s helper who had a pretty good union job until Reagan proved unions were dispensable by firing all the Air Traffic Controllers.  It trickled on down and finally Billy Bob found himself in a quandary when he got replaced by a cheaper-wage illegal, fresh up from the border.  No unions necessary no more got Billy Bob a South East Texas pink slip, and when he found a job later, he had to compete with the cheaper labor available.  So Billy Bob had to let his air boat go back to the credit union, no more alligator night hunts to supplement no income.  And that refinery job he was hopin’ to get thanks to his sister’s brother Buford just up and vanished along with that $18 an hour and lots of overtime.

A few weeks ago I met a bunch of these Billy Bobs at a party across the lake.  It became known real quick that they hated Obama, and I questioned them as to why.  In Part II I will tell you all about it and how and why hatred for a candidate can build to the boiling point, but nobody can really put their finger on why, even now. 

The Big-Spending Republicans and the Military Industrial Complex: Part I

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”  Dick Cheney

Often, I am criticized for making negative remarks about another person’s politics, one’s preference for political candidates, and the tandem threat of the GOP and Fox News (fair and balanced, of course), but not necessarily in that order.  It is a fair criticism, too, for I have been relentless in attempting to skewer the Republicans for all their blatant stealing by picking the pockets of innocent American taxpayers.  Republicans stealing?  Well, I never.  But let me explain.  When a president like (take Reagan, puh-lease) stumps hard in his 8 years in the White House to beef up our military so the United States (under God, of course) could bring Russia (he called them the Evil Empire) to their knees, what does that tell you?  At the time I thought the world must think us to be quite loony, not to mention Biblically-corrupted nut cases.  During those 8 years in the White House Reagan attacked and sent troops into Grenada.  Stayed only a couple of weeks then decided Grenada was safe again from Communism, and the U.S. troops departed.  My, my, and didn’t Reagan have some of our Tom Cat jet fighters strafe Libya, too?  The Pentagon had to pinch themselves at Reagan’s ability to inspire military buildup and borrowing the funds to do such a good job during peacetime.  It was a Hollywood masterpiece.  Reagan was convincing.  But what did we get for our military money spent during Reagan’s 8-years in the White House? 

First, in Reagan’s goading Congress successfully during peacetime to borrow and spend an astonishing $3 Trillion that America did not have in our Treasury, just WTF did it accomplish?  Well, that little presidential wink-and-nod play cost taxpayers the $3 Trillion PLUS interest compounded on that very amount since Reagan left office, and, well that is 24 years of compounded interest. Duuuude!  At 3% compounded for 24 years?  Please don’t tell me the damage that piece of “conservative” slight of hand work did to our Treasury.  So what did we get for our money?  Better still what did Cheney mean when he said, “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter?!!!”  And what part did that little borrowing and spending spree that elated the Military Industrial Complex play in Ben Bernanke’s Frankenstein printing more U.S. Dollars as America scrambles to pay its debts NOW?  AND don’t forget the gargantuan interest on the National Debt!  But, no, just take the $3 Trillion by itself; what did it cost us common folk American taxpayers in the long and short run, financially?  How much does it cost us to pay the Chinese EVERY YEAR just to pay the interest on just the $3 Trillion Reagan borrowed and spent to bring Russia to its knees?  And what does it really say about the Great Communicator now that years later our own National Debt is at $15 Trillion and Russia is in the black, flaunting a $2 Trillion surplus to the world and the dumb ass Yanks that tried to bring Mother Russia to her knees?  Thank you very much, Gipper.  Russia must have been doing just fine all those years they spent on their knees, what?  And we know that Halliburton was doing fine, too, but that’s another story, isn’t it?

The interest we pay China does not benefit one single American!  It does not pay a PENNY for healthcare, no SCHIPS (affordable healthcare for children of low-income families), or one dime to fund Social Security, Medicare, or college Pell Grants or Education funding of any kind, for that matter.  NOTHING.  The interest we have to scramble to pay due to reckless borrowing and spending on an imaginary foe, The Evil Empire of Russia, if you please, has shown us smooth-out how the Gipper sold America down the river!  And the interest we now pay has contributed greatly to the killing of our Dollar and the demise of America’s financial survival.  And the thunderclouds of INFLATION looming on the horizon. Each and every year, that interest the U.S. must pay China (thank you Dick Cheney for your sage comments on how Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter) plus other vast amounts of borrowing and spending has brought us to the edge of the financial cliff.  Sweet.  The only thing at this point that is keeping America alive is the money it can borrow and continue to borrow from the Chinese (China now owns $1.2 Trillion of U.S. Debt).  Or the Japanese (Japan holds $1.01 Trillion of U.S. National Debt).  The American people don’t even own a paltry $1 Trillion of U.S. Debt (makes you go slack-jawed, don’t it?), but others like the U.K., Brazil, own triple-digit Billions of dollars of U.S. Debt.  We taxpayers pay big interest to all the foreign countries that lend us money to operate as a sovereign nation, and we get NOTHING for it!  Cheney was right:  Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter, but he was not talking about us, the common American taxpayer.  He was talking about the good old boys, the Military Industrial Complex like his own Halliburton that gets to sell Uncle Sam $500 hammers on NO-BID contracts.  And if that don’t burn a taxpayer’s ass or two we must all be brain-dead.  But I think it’s plain that Cheney wasn’t talking about us, the American taxpayer.

Imagine what we could have done with the interest if we did not have to pay it to the likes of China with no benefit to America or Americans.  Just imagine.  To borrow and spend in peacetime to defeat the Evil Empire sounds fanatically Biblical.  And stupid.  Russia is alive and well, thank you very much Mr. Reagan, and has a $2 Trillion dollar surplus in their Treasury when America has a deplorable $15 Trillion dollar debt (and counting).  The Evil Empire is in the black and has a SURPLUS, O Great Communicator, and we American hamburger-flippers here in America are still manufacturing products like fries and Big Macs here at McDonald’s.

But if such high-level stealing is true, then who is the thief?  A GOP president labeled the thief in question quite well.  Ike said to beware of the Military Industrial Complex.  Broken down, Ike said there were corporations who were willing to spend billions of dollars to get lucrative NO-BID government contracts.  So who did these arms and hardware companies steal from?  Why us, the American people, who else?  Taxes flow into the U.S. Treasury.  Congress and the president recommend and approve military budgets.  U.S. Treasury dollars flow out to the Pentagon and Military Industrial Complex corporations who charge Uncle Sam $500 for a single hammer!  Is it rocket science to predict that the Pentagon and Halliburton are living beyond our means?  Or that a friend in the White House and Congress can pull it off?  No matter how much it all stinks?

So how do they manage to pull it off?  Is the American taxpayer in such a deep coma that he doesn’t notice?  How does this love affair between government and the Military Industrial Complex manage to deceive the American taxpayer?  It still befuddles my world when that question is asked because it appears that Congress is more than willing to award contracts at bizarre high prices to these Military Industrial Complex corporations.  And what is Congress’ reward for doing so?  Well very large sums of campaign contributions to insure their reelection, maybe?  You think?

So that isn’t exactly stealing is it?  Duh…YES.  Think it might be a bit subversive and dishonest to allow certain favored corporations the right to sell Uncle Sam jet fighters, tanks, or firearms without the litmus test of competition bidders to keep the whole thing honest?  You know, like in allowing other companies to make a competitive bid on the military hardware we are paying for with our tax dollars?  How do we know if the bid is a good one?  How do we know that the company with the no-bid contract is not gouging us, the taxpayer who must pay Uncle Sam’s bills?  Well, the no-bid price of $500 for a single hammer is a pretty good indicator, right?  And after all whose tax dollar is it?

The GAO has tried to collar these government-spending thieves before for all things our government arbitrarily says it needs to function.  Some of the GAO findings reveal that in many instances exorbitant prices are paid out to these NO-BID government contractors selling products and services to the U.S. Government:  $500 hammers and $600 toilet seats.  And in my view, when you can buy a hammer, a good hammer, at The Home Depot for $19.95 there must be a thief in the equation.  When your government, if it were to decide to exercise its very oath to serve in the best interests of you and me, I think they might become conscientious buyers, e.g., and emulate Wal-Mart who shops the best price for its bottom line and its stockholders.  Our government is a runaway train full of drunken thieves who are laughing their way down the track of our own destruction.  By stealing and pocketing tax dollars that belong to the people who paid their taxes in good faith that our representatives would exercise prudence and fiduciary control over our tax dollars.  And to serve us, the people, not the corporations who bribe them with huge sums of money tagged as campaign contributions.  Have they no shame?  Can Dick Cheney really believe that “Deficits don’t matter.” without feeling a twinge of guilt?  Will Satan have a change of heart and begin to do charity work for the Salvation Army? 

So why do I pick on Republicans when the Democrats have their own way of abusing the American taxpayer?  I will get to them next in Part II, but let me say that under 8 years of Reagan and 8 years of Bush II (who borrowed and spent even more than Reagan:  a cool $4 Trillion), I become very sad to think that our country has been stolen away by bandits apparently in bed with government, the very lethal union of thieves that Ike warned us about.  Stay tuned.