The ‘H’ Word

Posted on May 23, 2014 by johnrachel

It used to be imprudent or just plain vulgar to say the ‘F’ word.

Now we just say it . . . fuck.

It’s such common parlance, so acceptable, it’s become the language of diplomacy, as with the policy declaration by Deputy Secretary of State Victoria ‘F**k the EU’ Nuland about the crisis she and her neocon friends precipitated in the Ukraine.

But I’ll tell you a word we don’t dare say anymore.

You know the one . . .

The ‘H’ word.

Sometimes it’s written as ‘h*pe’ or ‘ho*e’.

We used to actually use the word often. It was on everyone’s lips.

But after President Obama — or I should say Brand Obama — and the corporate lapdog Democrats made it central to their 2008 and 2012 campaigns, then turned it into both the brunt of cruel jokes and the poisonous pill of despair, it became as popular as leprosy, not even whispered anymore in polite company.

Who wants to cry in public?

They sure got us all wide-eyed and teary-eyed with all those ‘H*pe and Change’ bumper stickers and campaign posters. People started believing things would turn around and America would get back on track, after eight tortuous years immersed in the stupidity, boorishness and arrogance of George W.

Then this phalanx of feel-good experts and spin doctors responsible for the propaganda juggernaut we experienced —  especially during the heady days running up to the 2008 election — took the faith and good will, the higher aspirations of the American public and threw them in the toilet, took several healthy dumps on our heartfelt desire to embrace the American Dream. They even continue cynically to this day to peddle fresh variants of their snide charm-offensive h*pe-and-change trash-talk, assuming the public is none the wiser, and still thirsty for the arsenic-spiked Kool-Aid of their duplicity.

This is shameful on so many levels. After the horror of George W. and his band of blatant liars, the ignorant, delusional, self-serving oligarchs who mockingly led us into a false war, bankrupted the economy, reversed fifty years of progress toward becoming a humane and sane society, we had all but given up. Then the sun burst through the storm clouds of our collective misery and revulsion. People were so engorged with h*pe, many even heralded Obama as the new Messiah. Okay. Okay. That was over the top. Yet not just America, but the entire world was at his feet, expecting this man who spoke with such eloquence, such passion, sincerity, intelligence, to deliver on the noble promises contained in his books, Dreams From My Father and Audacity of Hope, given in soaring oratorical performances at his campaign rallies, in his inaugural address, and any number of speeches given during the first few months of his presidency — most notably the one delivered June 4, 2009 at Cairo University titled “A New Beginning”. Many of us, arguably an overwhelming majority, naively thought this heralded a new age built around peace and prosperity spanning the entire globe, and the ascendancy of justice and respect for others.

And what do we have?  You know . . .

Mr. Nobel Peace Prize has proven to be more trigger happy than the sneering gun-slinging Texan he replaced, Mr. Transparency is far more secretive and presides over a regime that spies on everyone, the jails are bulging with more and more people of color — but none of the bankers and financial predators who crashed the world economy in 2008 — the rich just get richer, the poor get poorer, the banks are looting the treasury, corporations are out of control, fracking is out of control, global warming is out of control, wealth inequality is out of control, poisoning our food, air and water are out of control, the police are out of control, the imperial neocon warmongers are out of control, the military is out of control, maybe everything is out of control.

Or more accurately, it’s in control of the wrong people.

So now the ‘H’ word is a very dirty word. It’s too charged with treachery, the violation of the best intentions and wholesome expectations of a lot of very good but obviously gullible people. No one dares utter it without everyone within earshot going into convulsions of indignation or crying fits of despair.

There is, however,  another ‘H’ word I’m hearing more and more these days . . .

Hypocrisy.

Posted in Political Analysis, Political Rant, War and Peace | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

America Has Become Anti-American

Posted on May 20, 2014 by johnrachel

Because I live in Japan and post articles which are critical of America, I am often accused of being anti-American. The truth is both counter-intuitive and extremely disturbing.

I haven’t changed … America certainly has.

America has become anti-American!

The Constitution guarantees freedom of the press. Yet reporters are now being intimidated and threatened with arrest and incarceration. Whistleblowers who try to expose fraud, corruption, and waste in government by making available in public news media forums information of value to American citizens, are likewise harassed and prosecuted.

The Constitution requires the government to promote the general welfare. Yet the benefits of our economic wealth are accruing to a tiny elite while poverty is still pervasive and the majority of the population scrambles to make ends meet. Among the 34 highly developed nations in the world, America ranks 17th in terms of life satisfaction — happiness — the key factors for its low ranking being massive income inequality and excessively long hours spent on average in the work place. In terms of health care and life expectancy, for the richest country in the world, America ranks abysmally low.

The Constitution guarantees equal representation of its citizens. Yet, the electoral system has become corrupted by unverifiable e-voting, grotesque gerrymandering of districts, and torrents of money in politics, which only guarantees the voices of average voters will be drowned out and their participation in our democracy marginalized.

The Constitution guarantees the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, and right of trial by jury before peers, yet starting in 2001 by using the endless War on Terror as an excuse, patently unconstitutional legislation has been effected — Patriot Acts I and II, FISA, and the NDAA which Obama signed into law on New Years Eve 2011 while America was preoccupied with celebrating the holidays, which have regularly been renewed ever since — now placing every citizen at risk for arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention with no access to legal counsel.

The Constitution guarantees equality before the law. Yet rich elite white collar criminals wreak havoc on our economy breaking countless laws and go free, while petty crimes by regular citizens — especially people of color — result in harsh and disproportionate prosecution and punishment.

The Constitution specifies that the power to make war is exclusively the responsibility of Congress. Yet the president as Commander-in-Chief often ignores the constitutional limits as well as the War Powers Act, using the military purely at his own discretion. This abuse of power results in unnecessary deaths of our citizens in uniform, while at the same time counter-productively foments enormous animosity and mistrust throughout the world.

Our legal framework via the Posse Comitatus Act has long barred the use of the military for law enforcement but vast and sophisticated surveillance by federal security agencies, the militarization of local police forces, and their handshake agreements with federal agencies, puts us all under the iron fist of enforcement agencies like the NSA and operatives of the Pentagon itself.

I could go on. But that might offend some people.

Sometimes the truth can be so anti-American.

Posted in Democracy, Political Analysis, Political Rant, War and Peace | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Absentee Democracy

Posted on April 28, 2014 by johnrachel

There are always a few numbskulls who harass me with poorly constructed, grammatically insulting rants about the fact that I have chosen to live overseas.

They always say something like . . .

“What kind of American are you? YOU LIVE IN JAPAN!”

The answer that comes immediately to mind is . . .

“I’m the kind of American who lives in Japan.”

I spent six decades growing up, living and working in America.

I have an American passport, therefore I’m an American citizen.

I pay taxes to the American government. Still! And by the way, America is the only country that DOUBLE TAXES their citizens who live overseas. I pay taxes to Japan and I pay taxes to America. Unheard of in the rest of the civilized world.

And frankly I have no problem with the half of my taxes that go toward schools, education, building roads and bridges (which I no longer use), helping those who have fallen on hard times __ e. g. unemployment benefits, school lunch programs, Head Start, SNAP, heating assistance subsidies __ and promoting R&D addressing health and environmental issues.

But I DO HAVE A PROBLEM with the other half of the money they collect from me, which I have no say in. You know, the half of the federal budget that goes for the war machine we are building to take over the world, the money wasted on military misadventures, toppling democratically elected foreign governments, drone murdering of innocent civilians, spying on everyone with a pulse, wreaking havoc across the planet and creating far more enemies than we kill, sending our best young people into battle to protect the interests of already rich corporations. Yes, I do have a problem with paying those taxes. We all should.

But getting back to the xenophobic super-patriots . . .

Maybe these yokels are questioning my red-white-and-blue pedigree. Maybe they think somehow my all-American blood has become polluted and diluted because I live in Japan and have a Japanese wife.

One variation of the attack is particularly amusing.

“Well, Mr. Hotshot Expat, do you vote?”

This is probably coming from someone who doesn’t. But here’s the skinny on that one.

Though I think our electoral system is corrupt, that at least at this point our politicians are owned lock-stock-and-barrel by a tiny vainglorious and filthy rich elite, that our two-party system is a joke and both Democrats and Republicans unwillingly or maybe willingly are puppets to Wall Street banks and transnational corporations, that without serious immediate changes, democracy is effectively dead in America . . .

Though self-appointed, arrogant and misguided stewards of our electoral process have disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters of color who they have deemed unworthy of the constitutional right to have a voice in our political system, though these exact same anti-democratic partisan bullies have hacked up any prospect of proper representation through gerrymandering and consigned voting to the irrelevancy of a video game via rigged voting machines . . .

For those rubes that have never left Cottonwad County and can’t find China on a map, one of the marvels of these amazing modern times is that you can visit the Great Wall of China in the morning and vote in an American election in the afternoon. You can have breakfast at a cafe in Paris or Amsterdam or even Tokyo on your way to dropping off an election form at a foreign post office. It’s called an absentee ballot. So the answer is . . .

Yes! I vote!

Posted in Political Rant, Satire, Social Commentary, War and Peace | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Revolutions Are Like Orgasms

Posted on April 25, 2014 by johnrachel

Revolutions are like orgasms.

And except for a very few, very fortunate individuals, no one gets off instantly.

America is a mature country. Like the mature among us, it takes a lot longer to get it up and achieve that much anticipated, highly welcome happy ending.

So along came Occupy Wall Street. Damn! It felt real good. Everybody was getting that great feeling, right there where if counts. But the federal government, party poopers that they are, came busting the doors down. Talk about spoiling a good time! OWS went limp, as they were being handcuffed and carted away.

But this is not the end of the story. It’s just the beginning. We’ll get that warm tingling sensation back again. We’ll get it up. Next time we’re going to . . . who knows?

Mobilize, strike, demonstrate, boycott, banish, chide, challenge, mock, maul, maim, contain, deter, defy, disassociate, disconnect, discredit, disturb, disrupt . . . disrobe?

Well . . . whatever it takes.

And some day — the sooner the better — that long overdue happy ending will be ours.

Yes!

Posted in Deconstruction, Political Analysis, Spiritual | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Arm Wrestling Jesus

Posted on April 19, 2014 by johnrachel

I think it’s about time we settle the whole Jesus/Son of God/Savior of Mankind thing once and for all.

After all, there’s so much dispute about what Jesus said, what He did, what He meant, why He was here, even who He was.

Basically all of this comes down to the question about His divinity. That in one giant gulp swallows everything else. It’s the elephant — or maybe whale (see Jonah 1:17) — in the room.

So I’m issuing a challenge to Jesus Christ, upon His return to Earth.

Here’s my challenge . . .

When the Man-Who-Died-On-The-Cross-and-Lived-to-Tell-About-It returns to our sorry planet — as we all know, this encore appearance is referred to among the reverent as the Second Coming — we’re going to first straight away settle the whole omnipotence thing.

After giving Him a few days much needed R and R to get His bearings and get back up to Savior speed — God knows what the jet lag must be coming that distance — we’re going to sit Him down to an arm wrestling contest. Yes, that’s right. An arm wrestling contest!

Let’s see what He’s made of.

Let’s see once and for all if He’s really got the right stuff!

If Jesus wins, He will be crowned King of . . . of . . . well . . . everything.

If He loses, He owes us a big apology. Really big! . . . considering all of the time and money we’ve spent on cathedrals, churches, prayer books, pipe organs, hymnals, the Pope Mobile.

Let me state unequivocally, I think it’s important here to pit Him against the best that the atheists have on their side. To be quite honest, I can’t really say I’m up to speed on atheist arm wrestling, so you folks out there who are familiar, help me out here, by choosing from among your heathen flock who you think can finally put Jesus in His place. Seriously, give it your best shot! He may come off as a wimpy preacher/philosopher/guru kind of guy — generally these touchy-feeley types are not exactly known for their athleticism — but if He truly is the Son of God and all-powerful as widely claimed, He’s bringing more to the table than steroid-soaked, pumped-up muscles. Certainly don’t underestimate Him. You might want to think David and Goliath. This calls for brain and brawn. Jesus supposedly had a formidable bag of tricks at His disposal first time around — raising the dead, changing water to wine, cripple maintenance and repair, leper healing, fishes and loaves, water walking — so He’s definitely not a lightweight!

Folks, I’d say we’re in for a real mega-event here, the veritable Super Bowl of Metaphysics! The World Series of Cosmology!  Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if Arm Wrestling Mania sets new pay-per-view records.

Then when this battle of the biceps is over — and I have no personal stake in the outcome except for the life savings I placed on a bet with a rather tawdry bookie here in Japan — I hope once and for all we have the answers we’ve been looking for and can move on to tackling the bigger, more pressing questions of our troubled times.

Like . . .

Why did they kill off Will Gardner in the hit TV series “The Good Wife”?

WHY?!!

Posted in Deconstruction, Religion, Satire, Social Commentary, Spiritual | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Compassion Is The Fashion

Posted on April 17, 2014 by johnrachel

Compassion is the love muscle of caring.

But a lot of the muscle flexing I see going on these days is more like body building than a genuine show of strength. It looks great and makes the “flexer” feel darn good about him or herself, but other than putting on an impressive show, it doesn’t get much done. And it actually may do some real harm.

Look at all of the crocodile tears over the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370.

Granted that this is a tragic, highly unexpected event. Whether pilot error, pilot meltdown, mechanical failure, a vibrational burp in the harmonic spectrum, or some hairline gash in the condom of the space-time continuum, it happened and represents a tragic loss for the families of the passengers.

But the simple fact remains, none of us caused it. None of us can bring back to life the victims of this bizarre malfunction. None of us particularly needs this new reminder that the world we live in, even those things we so fastidiously design and meticulously create, are not and never will be perfect. Certainly none of us can even do anything to prevent it from happening again. We have no idea even what happened.

So why the media drama and obsessive news reports? And why the disproportionate and OCD level of attention to a fluke, affecting 239 people who 99.9999% of us didn’t and will never know?

Well . . . we do know why the media gave this particular event so much attention. Yes, if it bleeds it leads. But now since the spurting of blood is down to a trickle, we find the story consigned to the “back pages” of the 24/7 cyber river of pseudo news and hand-wringing, gut-wrenching, love-muscle flexing. And like the switch man at the local railway yard, we can send our trail of tears down another track. The Compassion Express is off to some brand new destination of manufactured grief.

At the same time, during the unfolding of the Malaysian airliner crisis, it was indisputable. We really cared. We really felt for those victims __ the dead and their surviving relatives and friends. By golly, it really felt good to care about others. It really showed what a good space we were in. What really kind and sensitive people we are. It really let those relatives and friends of the missing passengers know what a concerned and compassionate family the 7 billion of us fellow brothers-and-sisters-in-shared-misery are here on our shrinking planet.

Really?

Did anyone check with the families to see if they really wanted all that attention? Did we forget about something called “privacy” or “solitary mourning”? Do we actually think that mass, anonymous sharing of their grief made any of those poor, sorrowful individuals feel any better? Did anyone stop to think it might actually make them feel worse? That maybe a big group hug from millions of television voyeurs wasn’t such a great idea?

During the sanctions imposed on Iraq for their invasion of Kuwait, lasting for twelve years from 1991 until 2003 when Saddam Hussein was finally toppled by the U.S. invasion, it is estimated that over 500,000 children died of malnutrition and lack of medical supplies and proper health care.

Articles reporting this horrible tragedy started on the back pages and stayed there, or they disappeared entirely. There certainly was no outpouring of shared grief for the millions of Iraqi casualties resulting from our insidious foreign policies, including the death of over a half million children. No crocodile tears were shed outside of some very dedicated, truly caring on-the-ground aid organizations who saw first-hand the genocidal results of our cruel punishment of innocent civilians.

But there should have been.

What’s the difference between Flight 370 and sanctions on Iraq?

While we had nothing to do with the vanishing of Malaysian Flight 370, we were directly responsible for the death of those innocent children. It was our government perpetrating this horror. We could have stopped it.

Moreover, we can and should stop things like this from ever happening again, because each one of us is implicitly involved. As citizens of a democracy, each of us is directly and personally responsible for the policies and actions that come out of our often misguided representatives in Washington.

And when we murder 500,000 innocent children, that’s something to cry about.

Unlike disappearing jetliners, it’s something we could have done something about.

There is something we could do something about right now. Something we should and must do. That’s ending the illegal, immoral, and self-sabotaging murder of innocents with drones. It’s estimated that just during the Obama presidency 2400 individuals have been killed by these diabolical weapons of our errant, self-defeating foreign policy. Estimates which run as high as 37% say many of the dead are completely innocent people, having absolutely no interest or role in terrorist activities against the U.S. or its allies, mere victims of our paranoid and extralegal campaign of assassinating militants. Often these folks were just attending weddings or other family events. A lot of the killed again are children, lives cut short by being in the wrong place.

The harsh truth is that we are all complicit in these murders. It’s our government. It’s our trigger-happy Congress and President who perpetuate this carnage. This is something we should be crying about.

Crying and yelling and screaming.

Do you feel it?

Posted in Political Analysis, Political Rant, War and Peace | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Broccoli Is Free Speech and Tractors Are Persons

Posted on March 31, 2014 by johnrachel

Broccoli farmers celebrated today as the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, declaring broccoli free speech and the tractors used on their farms to be persons.

The implications of this controversial ruling are not entirely clear but are expected to be far-reaching.

The President has by executive order mandated that all public parking lots now have a specially designated area next to the already required handicapped parking zones, giving tractors priority parking.

Voter registration of tractors is expected to begin early next week. This will heavily weight congressional representation in agricultural states. With reapportionment, Nebraska and Kansas are expected to send as many congressman to Washington DC as California and Texas. Pundits and political analysts are saying this will tilt the House of Representatives even more to the right, as tractors tend to lean very conservative. It will also be a gigantic boost for proponents of prayer in schools, as most tractors are evangelical Christians.

Major banks will be sending out Visa applications to all farm vehicles. They are leaving it to the vehicles themselves to sort out which fit the strict definition of tractor personhood referenced in the Supreme Court decision.

The free speech aspect of the decision is a little more complicated. Now that broccoli has the same right of expression under the Bill of Rights as human protoplasmic life forms and corporations, will this affect placement in grocery store vegetable sections? How exactly will the voice of broccoli be heard? It’s not as if broccoli is all that popular of a food that it might be used as payment for political favors. A recent NBC/Times poll among prominent politicians at the national and state level showed only a 17% approval rating for broccoli. These guys are not going to be lining up and fighting their way to the front of a feeding trough full of the green stuff unless it’s the more traditional green stuff of money.

On a more forthright note, a bill has been introduced in Congress, co-sponsored by several legislators from Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Georgia, and Mississippi, declaring broccoli to be the official National Vegetable, joining the Bald Eagle as the National Bird and the Oak as the National Tree.

One hotbed of contention which has literally taken over the airwaves of talk radio since the Supreme Court decision, is the question of evolution. There is a core of fundamentalists in the Deep South who are objecting to the notion that tractors are a product of the industrial revolution, the final result of a long progression of increasingly sophisticated man-made devices. One preacher in Alabama declared, “There’s no way you’re gonna tell me that my tractor started as a wheelbarrow, then magically turned into the fine machine it is today. By golly, I love my tractor like I love my own children.”

As might be expected, now that tractors have been declared persons, there have already been massive book burnings across America of text books which portray them as mere agricultural implements.

Moreover, piles of broccoli are now showing up in churches, often right on the altars in front of the crucifixes. People have reported hearing voices emanating from the broccoli, offering a message of hope and a promise of a glorious world in the afterlife.

We should all be grateful that the nine judges sitting on the hallowed highest court in the land have been instrumental in providing a new positive direction for a nation that has recently been troubled by so much bad news and plagued by divisiveness.

This is surely something we can all get behind.

Posted in Nihilism, Political Analysis, Satire, Social Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Extreme? Radical? Or just realistic?

Posted on March 30, 2014 by johnrachel

We are constantly being lied to. We are being sold wars  we don’t want.  We are having our best social programs cut. Our jobs and tax dollars are being shipped overseas.  Our treasury is being looted by Wall Street banks and corporate oligarchs. Our education system at all levels is being systematically destroyed. Our privacy and personal freedoms are being whittled away. We are being asked to work harder for less money. Our minimum wage is so minimum, no one can possibly live on it. We are told we have to tighten our belts while the rich are carting away billions from the public till as tax breaks and corporate subsidies. 7-11 clerks and fast food cooks pay higher tax rates than corporate CEOs and rich Wall Street bankers.

How long does this have to go on before the American people have finally had enough?

The typical American citizen is being shafted on so many levels, what totally astounds me is that there are not outraged mobs in the streets demanding the heads of the politicians and the cold calculating country club elites they serve.

Okay . . . okay . . . mass insurrection is not going to happen. At least not for now.

So it seems obvious to me that since we’re not going to have a revolution in this country, the very least we can do is replace the elected officials in our federal government who have been the cheerleaders and implementers of these onerous policies. The very least!

I’ve stated over and over that we need to replace at least 500 of our legislators, then put someone in the White House who understands and serves the needs of all Americans, not just the filthy rich. I’ve even dug up that old electoral battle cry: “Throw the bums out!”

As a result, I’ve had people say I’m extreme . . . out-of-touch . . . radical . . . and even call me an ungrateful, unpatriotic, American-hating whiner. I get it. Attack the messenger.

Let’s be honest here. If our government on practically every critical front is headed in completely in the wrong direction and I say it’s time to clean house . . .

Am I extreme?

Am I radical?

Or am I just being realistic?

I am proposing here simple, straightforward tests, applied locally within each community. These are based on the electoral strategy outlined in my recent book, “An Unlikely Truth.” Just ask yourself . . .

  • Did my congressman or senator vote against raising the federal minimum wage? If he or she did, it means that this elected official is voting against the stated will of 72% of the American voting public. Apparently the demands of the greedy businessmen who fill his or her election campaign coffers are more important than people being able to earn a decent living.
  • Did my congressman vote for the Ryan budget in the House or did my senator vote for continuing tax breaks for the rich in the Senate? That vote would go against the 71% of the voting public who think the wealthy should bear more of the burden, as they did for most decades of the 20th Century. Supporting historically low income tax and capital gains tax rates means more money into the pockets of the already wealthy, paid for by the rest of us who are struggling to make ends meet. It’s Robin Hood . . . but in reverse.
  • Did my congressman or senator vote for a defense budget which included the infamous F-35 advanced fighter jet, arguably the biggest boondoggle in the history of the nation? A whopping 75% of American voters want serious cuts in the defense budget. Voting for any of the bloated defense appropriations budgets means throwing away money on worthless defense projects while schools, streets, bridges are crumbling. It’s putting bombs and bullets above quality of life.
  • Did my congressman or senator vote for continuing oil subsidies for the oil industry? Alright, profits were a little off last year. So the Big 5 __ BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell __ only made $177,000 per minute.  Cry me a river! That added up to $93 billion in total profits. 74% of Americans want the government to stop throwing money at the these behemoth corporations and insist they start paying their fair share in taxes.
  • Did my congressman or senator vote for funding attacks on Libya, Syria, Iran, the Ukraine or extending the waste of American tax dollars in Afghanistan, which 69% of Americans now oppose? Americans are sick of war. Fed up! Every dollar spent on these misadventures is one less dollar for critical needs here at home. Estimates for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the upwards of $6 trillion __ that’s trillion with a ‘t’. That adds up to 12,000,000 good paying jobs here in America. Think about it!
  • Did my congressman or senator vote for any legislation which cut benefits, raised the eligibility age, or tampered with the rate of increase of Social Security payments, for example, the “chained CPI” skullduggery? Such a vote, or even thinking about such a vote, is in direct opposition to the clear voice of the American people, 79% of which want no changes to the most popular and successful federal program in history. Putting the squeeze on our elderly, who have worked hard all their lives and can barely survive on the pittance that the program now provides, may be the most heartless, sinister, pathological proposal to come down the long pike of heartless, sinister, pathological proposals. The money to pay benefits would be there if the Social Security trust fund had not been raided to pay for unfunded wars and tax breaks for the rich, and having everyone’s savings replaced by a bunch of government security IOUs. More to the point, those responsible for this theft should not only not be in public office. They should be in prison.
  • Did my congressman or senator vote against labeling foods that contain GMOs? If he or she did, then this elected official is at odds with 93% of the voting public. Yes . . . I said 93%! And keeping people ignorant of what they’re eating and exposing them to potential health hazards as dictated by the giant food and agrochemical conglomerates like Monsanto is the choice your legislator is consciously and unconscionably making.

As far as I’m concerned, a ‘yes’ on any single one of the above questions is a knock out.

Zero tolerance. Time to look elsewhere. Time to stop voting for the same ol’ same ol’.

My reasoning is this. If your senator or congressman accepted what is effectively a bribe __ lobbyist favors, campaign donations, expensive lunches or junkets or whatever __ on one critical issue where there exists a major consensus among the American voting public and in your voting district, it means that at some time in the future, if enough pressure is applied by powerful corporations and their cutthroat lobbyists on other critical matters, your same representative will ignore you, his or her constituents, and vote lockstep with moneyed interests. If it happened once, it’ll happen again. Politicians must be put on notice: We’re watching and there is no margin for error. Or chicanery. Or excuses.

Of course, they’ll him-and-haw, create a tsunami of obfuscation and evasion to justify that one “compromise” or trade-off. I say we take the higher ground and leave the guy to drown in his own bullshit. Then suggest to Mr. Got-Lotsa-Excuses Legislator we’ve heard enough, point to the parking lot and tell him, “Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.”

Remember, elected officials want your vote. They will tell you what you want to hear to get you to check the box. Too often, once they are in office, they conveniently forget that the promises they made were in effect a contract with their constituents. A verbal contract. Based on what they said they would do, we voted for them. There’s a bond of trust and responsibility operating. And if they can’t honor any single one of those commitments, then why should we trust them to honor any of them __ past, present of future __ after they disappear inside the Washington bubble?

We have to keep focused . . .

It doesn’t matter whether your current congressman or senator has a pleasant smile, looks dashing when going to church on Sundays, has enchanting TV ads showing him or her at the local Kiwanis Club annual bake-off fundraiser, is a model family man or woman, and gosh-by-golly is again this year the Grand Marshall for the Independence Day parade down main street of your home town.

What does matter is whether he or she is listening to you, or taking marching orders from the deep-pocketed campaign donors who pay for those TV ads full of patriotic slogans and empty campaign promises, those slick video bites and photo ops designed to fool you once again into voting against your own interests and needs.

Is it extreme to expect honest representation?

Is it radical to want a functioning democracy?

Or is it just realistic to expect our system of government to work for all of us, not just the privileged and powerful?

______________________________________________________________

I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth, I offer an electoral strategy which I believe can effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to restore representative democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in every popular ebook format and as a deluxe edition paperback.

Posted in Corporatism, Political Analysis, Political Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Obviously Insane?

Posted on March 29, 2014 by johnrachel

A definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein has been getting a lot of attention lately . . .

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So every day I get up, read the news, write some comments on Facebook, OpEdNews, Huffington Post, sign some petitions. Some days I write a blog (that takes up several hours), some years I write a book. That means 6 to 8 months of focused work. (My most recent novel, “An Unlikely Truth” took about two years to research, then six months to write and re-write.)

This pattern of activity has been going on for several years now. Day after day, I do these same things over and over. Each and everyday I check the news, the reports, the updates.

I keep hoping.

But nothing changes.

Well . . . technically it does. Things get worse.

But there you are. The textbook (or comic book) definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Sound familiar?

But I figured something out the other day. Maybe I’m not insane.

There is an important concept that applies here. That concept is critical mass.

Adapted from nuclear physics, where a certain critical concentration of fissile material is required to create and sustain a nuclear reaction, the sociodynamic concept of critical mass is parallel.

Basically, it suggests that there is some level of active participation within society, where change occurs and becomes self-sustaining. Estimates of what percentage of the general population is sufficient varies. Some say only 5%, others suggest it’s more like 20%. It’s a relatively small percentage nevertheless. Meaning once a certain level of awareness occurs, once a comparatively small number of individuals embrace a compelling idea, it takes off. Whoosh! It catches on fire and sweeps through the society like a firestorm. Soon almost everybody is on board. From that modest critical mass grows a powerful consensus.

The important thing to appreciate with critical mass is that profound change, even huge paradigm shifts, don’t necessitate 100% of the population. An aggressive, focused minority can move mountains. They might even be able to move Congress. Wouldn’t that be special!

So specifically in terms of our current, highly frustrating political quagmire, let me offer my own, slightly mutated definition of insanity . . .

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but not having enough other insane people doing it to get a different result.

What do you think?

Obviously insane?

Or just hopeful?

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I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth, I offer an electoral strategy which I believe can effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to restore representative democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in every popular ebook format and as a deluxe edition paperback.

 

Posted in Political Analysis, Satire, Social Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Spitball Politics

Posted on March 14, 2014 by johnrachel

With my new book An Unlikely Truth coming out, I’ve had a few interesting days recently.

Among several interviews I did last week, I ended up on a right wing radio talk show. We only had a few minutes but the host immediately challenged me with . . . “Well, since money is free speech, how can you get the money out of politics? And why would you want to?”

For one of the few times in my life, I was speechless.

Of course, you and I know the answer to that question. But it’s a VERY LONG ANSWER!

It’s an answer that goes to the very core of the values each of us hold about our country, about our system of government, about what democracy means and how it should function in a free society.

Then something occurred to me.

This guy threw me a spitball.

He fired a pitch covered in slime, lubricated with the mucous of his warped, partisan, and corporate view of America, meant to slip and slide off any attempt by me to give it a good smack at least into the outfield, if not the stands.

Therefore . . . there was no point in even trying to answer it.

If you think that spitballs are not in the spirit of good sportsmanship, not aligned with the greater good of baseball and fair play, you don’t attempt to discuss it with a pitcher who has just won his last 15 games throwing the spitball.

You talk to people with some perspective, people who can look at our national sport, see it as only being fair, competitive, entertaining, and a contribution to our culture, when we all recognize that the integrity of the sport is more important than winning a particular game.

As a result, it was long ago decided by fair-minded, concerned members of the baseball community:

Spitballs are the unsavory choice of slime balls.

And the guys who insisted on throwing them were given an ultimatum:

Stop throwing spitballs or you can’t play the game.

It’s the same with politics. We can’t expect Congress or any of our national leaders to do the right thing about Citizens United or the corruption of our system with truckloads of corporate money, when these are the very people who are benefiting from this heinous mutilation of American democracy.

If the current crop of lackluster elected officials don’t want to play the game with honesty, distinction, respect for the American people, and reverence for representative democracy, they shouldn’t be allowed to play the game.

Spitball politics in the form of legalized bribery by lobbyists, play-for-pay politicians, and corruption of our political system by deep-pocketed oligarchs, is destroying America, or at bare minimum turning it into something we barely recognize.

No more spitball politics, I say!

If our current crop of weak-kneed elected officials don’t have the courage and integrity to adopt sportsmanlike rules by legislatively ending Citizens United immediately, they don’t belong in the game.

If a politician can’t embrace and play by sportsmanlike rules, one strike and he’s out!

______________________________________________________________

I am doing what I can to address the destruction of our democratic system.

Without taking back our government, nothing will change.

In my new book, An Unlikely Truth, I offer an electoral strategy which I believe can effectively remove the crooks and liars from office, and begin to restore representative democracy to America.

An Unlikely Truth (Literary Vagabond Books) is now available worldwide in every popular ebook format and as a deluxe edition paperback.

Posted in Political Analysis, Political Rant, Social Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments