A sermon from ‘self appointed rabbi’ Arnstein on why you can’t vote for the GOP.
I think their whole concept and crusades against trans gender and the people streaming to our borders for the problems we've created and the 'American way of life' we've created for ourselves is the terror of change.
They take that fear of change and make it to be the worst possible concept while trying to retain a system that I do not believe is sustainable and probably would be bad for the rest of the world.
The concepts therefore of selling the products that make our lives easier, or we are told that make our lives better, at great expense of energy and resources, are spreading around the globe.
We sell America through our steam roller of culture but forbid anyone else to come here or to have it.
We each have our pocket world computer communicator which sings us siren songs of acceptance and community but also emphasizes our individuality so much that future generations and even ourselves are lost without them. We are literally isolated from all when we can't even sit at a table with friends or enjoy a performance without our little electronic friend who accepts us for whomever we are and echos back to us what we want to hear.
I recently started with a new PCP who wanted everything done through the phone. And that's so their information is calling to us at its convenience or when its masters want to sell services. That's what all these phone aps are. We give you a little something, you give us everything.
I said no. Computer/Website or nothing. Fortunately that is still an option. A new CPAP will be connected to cell towers. Why? To monitor my sleep better? I have gotten on fine with my old one and am only replacing it because it has a dial that's ready to break.
I don't believe I need or want my sleep cycles daily reported in and yet to get the device, the insurers require it. Why? Because sleep is money. You don't sleep, you get sick, you cost more. Return on investment for that device which I have to rent and pay for anyway. How can we maximize the data for profitability?
So I pay for insurance and now I am paying with my data. I am seriously considering a faraday box for the device after the minimal ownership period.
So where is the regulation of that? And how many data breeches have we had??? Self regulation is working great! Why should we complain if a door falls off an airplane? Can't have that regulation affecting big business. But we need to regulate your personal choices and who you are and have a state sponsored religion of ‘christianism’.
And if your child needs a lifetime of expensive healthcare for a decision forced upon you on the state? FU BUDDY! We don't care about the stress of your finances and what this means to generational wealth because in our gun/drug/health care ignorance/loss of freedoms we aren't lifting a finger to protect that life or give them an education. Hell, education? F that! They might learn stuff we don't want them to learn.
But media finds a big story and amplifies it so the biggest threat are the people who come here for our way of life which we have sold around the globe in our movies and culture and by that token, we have the GOP radicals refusal and balking at helping another democracy like Ukraine, who, probably ethnically resembles our majority more than other immigrants who come here. And how many die because we don't want to aid them in their fight to have what we have. I wonder what Russian and Ukranian immigrants face in comparison to those from our own continent? Same treatment?
Oh pish posh - they can't win - we don't want them to win - we can't have them win - might have to give up something here or whatever. When did America stop caring about freedom and democracy? Or did we ever? History would say no. Just look at the Vietnam and Middle East wars. Or our chosen banana republic leaders over the years. Shah of Iran comes to mind.
And that 'party' has a leader who admires dictators and seeks to impose vengeance and alter our democracy forever? People are leaving the party, but worse, the voices of reason that are the ones that are leaving? Moderates, people I would vote for have been leaving or driven out for decades now.
The Chinese who came to the US to slave away for a better life for their future families, just like most immigrants, documented, legal, or not, died in the 1000s building the transcontinental railroad and when that was done the Chinese act was passed. Where was the Irish act for the Union Pacific's imports? Oh, well, they look like us. Look at the history of who worked harder, had less vices (but weren't perfect either - they were just used to a harsher rule) and caused the boss man less trouble.
Ok if you do our hardest labor we'll pay you as little as possible, but once done, get out, quit coming, don't be different, speak American. We treasure our roots and research them with ancestory dot com or 23 and me and then some denigrate the 'not us' for not being 'American'. And yet the highest decorated 'canon fodder' (442nd) regiment was made from Japanese Americans during WWII and that after having been locked up like animals. How many cages we have at the border right now? And now we have a rise in racist acts against Asians. Great! That’s traditional.
Now its scream no government regulation, bemoan the ACA because 'we don't want government in between us our and our doctors' which was a HUGE argument at the time and the blatant lie about DEATH COUNCILs distorting end of life counseling which acknowledges that the preservation of life at all costs, and a pay per service medical system, that became a huge cash cow for those who look at a profitable government funded system. I wonder who was threatened and who started those rumors.
I lost a FB friend over that argument because I said here is a link to the text of the ACA, you find the death council clause and you show it to me. When I got back gibberish I said I am done.
Then they complain about the rising costs of health care, deny it to the 'not us' and tell us that all life is precious, and want a system that puts bad people to death with a death penalty. And how do we warehouse those who have transgressed? Do they ever get their lives back if they made a mistake?
If an industry is threatened then political financial support is withdrawn. So we have gun laws for brown bess muskets that maybe could be shot 3 times a minute in the era of bump stops and automatic weapons. I guess America was great again when a crackpot could only use a knife?
Here, let’s catalog the hypocrisy of the land of the 'sort of' free, and 'brave' that is motivated by fear of that unknown which we claim is who we are:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
It is beyond comprehension.
We complain about simple supply and demand and free markets which we sort of have, which are fine when there isn't inflation, and when we look at the real factors - its hard to understand, so we blame whoever is in office.
Even when that party was in charge during the last financial collapse. Or passed laws to benefit their benefactors that caused prices to rise. Energy is a key input to every business. The GOP lifted caps on exports of oil. Energy companies are making record profits. Who matters? You or them?
That party shut down the government over government 'spending' and yet added 7T to the national debt under its 'conservative' ideals and passed laws and budgets so high in 2017 that made sure they wouldn't be held accountable and that 'tool' could not be used against them. I posted the news articles about it to social media. Let’s kick up that cognitive dissonance.
Its part of the play book. Don’t offer solutions, denigrate the other guy — sleepy joe. Nixon kept the Vietnam war going for his political rise and power. Reagan — Iran/Contra? Where did the funding come from? Helping drug cartels?
We then are forced to look at what the constitution, our religious texts, and our ever increasing knowledgebase reveals to us what is coming and who we should be, we claim it as our own and reject it in practice. Then the final abdication of responsibility and morality is the cry of ‘fake news’ for what you don’t like and when called on it, then it is 'only Jesus is perfect'. Yeah, well, John 13:34-35 - Jesus asked you to strive to be like Jesus, not like whatever the hell is going on now. Because it sure as hell is not 'love others as I have loved you'.
So we just pick and choose whatever feels right, applies to our comfort, as we do with all that information and reject wearing masks to protect others and ourselves during pandemics, refuse vaccinations for quack science which results in the deaths of others, revert to belief systems of a halcyon past which never existed, and never accept that we have to adapt to a new future.
I admit my own complicity. Do I want to sell off my 14 year old supercharge audi convertible? Yes, but only to get something even nicer.
And what did that MAGA Halcyon past have? Higher taxes, community, and less information to distract us from the fundamental problems. And the participation of people of color? The not us? They either want that history ignored or deny it happened, or tell us how good it was to be a slave. Sure.
So those who have money seek to rewrite the past, and have our 'leadership' forbid to teach about diversity, inclusion and education, and damn sure forbid a re-examination of our history which is intended to make us better. But they see examining the sins of the past will end up taking something or everything they have.
Or is it that they should lose what they have taken like the Sackler family and the opioid crisis in one more mass marketing scheme that has caused the deaths of 10s of thousands? Are the Sacklers murderers? What was the ramification of that? It was an American Drug Cartel that worked through our capitalist system funded through our healthcare system and social supports and was sanctioned by our law.
Was it any different than the brits and the opium wars where the English government forced drugs into China? Now China buries us in cheap products (TEMU for example) because all we care about and mostly can afford to get to our cultural ideals and wants is to consume, and envoke the old ‘if you can’t buy happiness you don’t know where to shop’ in a Kardashian world. (or lives of the Rich and Famous) Stoke that envy. Hold out that carrot? You can have that life if you vote for us!
Our country then needs to be the 'company store' of a railroad or manufacturing town. Is it a gilded cage that we seek? Or not?
We refuse to accelerate mental health care access to deal with all these contradictions and pressure mounts while we protect our 1st and 2nd amendment rights and inevitably someone gets stoked up enough to commit mass murder. Well....fortunes of war. Its like 'why would you chose to live in Texas in the path of all those tornadoes'?
We could do something about it, but its cheaper to restrict people's access to reproductive rights holding some kind of moral high ground while selling weapons across the border and supplying Haiti gangs in a land of chaos and keep American jobs going. And God forbid they come here! That's DeSantis's chance to be Governor Abbott.
So do we help those countries find a better future, or do we send just enough money to keep them there and hope whatever ruler we install we do enough to quell their population. We've certainly left Cuba, a once American vacation paradise, to rot. Even now after it has long ceased to be a threat we are scared of Cuba. If we let Cuba be a vacation spot again, then what? They'd probably have more income, industry, wealth and maybe a better life. Nah! COMMUNISTS! THEY'LL BRING THEIR FILTH HERE!!! Is their a rule against having a communist or socialist party here? Any laws against it? How about forming a birthday party for that matter?
We claim and forget those ideals which we wish to selectively apply to ourselves and those at our borders, and to humankind.
So one party says surrender your freedoms and its supporters on the supreme court(s) go back to laws written in 19th century and tell the people they are free while caging them in their fears of change, the future, refusing to look at the sins of the past so they are not repeated or can be repeated if it benefits 'us'. The same party that stresses their democracy and closes polling places in communities of color — some 1600 the last time I looked. Can’t have the ‘not us’ voting.
Ask yourself how long is it before you become the not us? And if you are a Jew, knowing what happened to us, then what about the Israeli hand in stoking the misery and preventing leadership and cooperating with corrupt Fatah leaving the Palestinians and impossible choice between Hamas who has a least done something and Fatah which does nothing. And now every Palestinian is blamed and is claimed they supported the murder and mayhem. That while settlers run rampages and take land. Sure. Israel is ‘without fault’. Hamas wouldn’t have support if the Palestinians had some decent governance but that wouldn’t help Bibi’s goal to be in power, because he too, like the GOP, needs an enemy, so he helps create one, and now…. at least there are opposition voices. But what was sacrificed by not taking a different path? 10,000s of thousands of lives.
And to really go out on a limb and ensure my unpopularity, what of it, how many die everyday, of what? And what do those numbers mean in the grand sum of 7 billion and counting lives?
We are reduced to an 'economical/data/vote unit’ participating in the every increasing model of extracting our wealth and blaming that loss through stoking the fear of not us, especially when they are our own citizens. Some kid goes to school with dreadlocks and it becomes a national issue. Did that kid beat someone up? Rob them? No, he didn't 'fit in'. A boy might kiss another boy! OMG!
This election then becomes the choice - go to a past that can not be, or keep our ideals and use the knowledge gained to have the best possible world and restore our community of democracy. If we truly want what we have now and the best possible future, it will not come through banning books and restricting knowledge.
God forbid, we give up access to the vote and lose our Democracy, only to hold on to power so at least those elites can have a few who reach the billion mark and then sell us the idea of the 'big club' that most will never reach. But keep them wanting more so they buy into the system.
And then have state sponsored gambling dangling a lucky lotto ticket as your free pass to the big club. But you'd be denigrated for not earning it since a lot of them inherited wealth, or had every economic and obvious LEGAL advantage and head start. How long was it before a huge sports betting scandal arose because Major League baseball wanted revenue from betting? So, if that’s ok now, did we reinstate ‘Charlie Hustle’ Pete Rose? No? Made a mistake. Pay for it forever. Wasn’t Jesus about forgiveness...oops...that’s a part of the bible we don’t part of.
Their leader, President Trump, has tried to use immunity and now freedom of speech to delay the trial of RICO charges. What are you afraid of President Trump? You said you’d show us your taxes, never did, and then UH OH, the legal system finally dragged out the truth. And yet that monumental FRAUD is some how the persecutions of Christ as you sell your $60 bibles.
And the poor dumb bastards frustrated by a system that threw them overboard decades ago (to quote Carlin) think that being ugly to everyone else, ‘saving poor little babies’, and wallowing in self imposed ignorance is going to get them the big ticket. At least they won’t have to look at a rainbow flag if they get their way.
If Rabbi Arnstein was a billionaire then Rabbi Arnstein would be telling people this message and saying - decide what you want and vote for it. And even better, come here and let's debate it. Not silence those voices, but amplify the ones of the history and knowledge we need to hear so that we make the choices best for our future generations. Even better, ask the hard questions.