The Road Up
By David Glenn Cox
Growing up I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to have two older sisters. As I was the youngest I tried to fit in an sought the approval of my sibling peers. "Dave, mom says we can have some cookies if you'll go get them." So there I'd be climbing up on the counter reaching for the cookie jar when a maternal voice would ask, "just what do you think you're doing young man?"
This educational scenario was played out in a thousand variants until sometime around age seven I graduated with a degree in full blown cynicism. If my sisters had told me the house was on fire I wasn't moving until I smelled smoke. This early educational program has checkered my entire life. As a kid trading baseball cards each trade was analyzed to determine what is was the trader was really after. "Why is he so anxious to give me Bob Gibson?" Because he's trying to butter me up to get Hank Aaron.
This early educational opportunity sparked a curiosity to look behind the curtain and to understand that when the car salesman tells me he has to ask the manager it is a strategy designed to wait me out and break down my resistance. My love of history has taught me that George Washington was an absolute model British colonist. He gladly defended the crown in the French & Indian war but when the king turned down George's request for a land grant (free land) west of the Appalachians George suddenly became a fiery revolutionary.
It should be noted that the British Parliament viewed the original Boston tea party crowd in much the same light as most of us view the current incantation. A loose collection of nuts, malcontents and idiots without the intellectual gunpowder to blow a stump. "Okay, here's the plan we're going to dress as Indians and meet down at the harbor. Then we're going to board a ship and throw all the tea overboard into the harbor."
"Ah, what good will that do? The man what rightfully owns that tea ain't got nothing to do with the British crown. He's just an innocent merchant, he could be importing ladies corsets just the same."
"Get him boys! He's a Communist!"
Those unfair taxes the Parliament levied were to pay the cost of defending the colonies. After the British won the French Indian war and eliminated the French threat the Americans looked at London and said, "Pay the bill! Screw you, what do we need you guys for anyway? This recurring theme runs from the founding of this nation until today that the merchant / banking class wants to profit from government service but doesn't want to pay for it.
Today the plan would be, "Okay, here's the plan we're all going to dress as the Taliban and meet in the Best Buy parking lot. Then we're going to throw TV sets off the roof to protest against the liberal media.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." In my eternal search for news and information I've learned that most important after the headline is the source. The other day I read a headline, "Millions of Stimulus Dollars Paid to Dead People. Sounds pretty damning doesn't it? As I read the story the money was paid through Social Security, now when you die your relatives notify Social Security and they stop sending checks. These checks were sent to people who had died but had not yet been taken off the roles and if you're familiar with Social Security trust me, they'll get the money back.
It wasn't a story, it was a non-story just as much as the Fox news jet backpack story. The moral is, the source matters and asking the question, who gains from this? I stay away from TV news sites and I stay away from issue driven web sites. You're not likely to get any actual information about the oil spill from the PB website.
So as I logged on to my computer the "Yahoo" news came up and never in my life have I seen a site more appropriately named. The lead story, "Iran detains seven U.S. troops: report" the source was Reuters and the dateline was almost two weeks old. The Fars news agency reports: "Recently seven American troops were detained by Iranian guards in a southeastern province of the country ... Two Iranians accompanying the troops were also arrested,"
Now before I go any further let me state for the record that I understand that many people lead busy lives. They have husbands and wives and screaming kids and barking dogs and ringing telephones. They have worries that weight down their time for political thought. That said, Let's look at this issue dispassionately and fairly.
How did seven US military men end up over the Iranian border? Do you suppose that they were arguing over the gas station map and innocently took a wrong turn in the Humvee while on a nature tour?
How would American's react if our own border patrol arrested seven Iranian revolutionary guardsman trying to surreptitiously enter the United States?
So as I reached the end of the article I came upon the comments,
"I say lets turn the land under over there and plant peanuts in the Nuclear soil. Grow big peanuts that way, Oh and use the Koran for toilet paper. we save lots of trees that way"
"this is a bunch of liberal crap"
"Hey Iran! Keep messing with the Bull and you will get the horns"
"You forget who our leader is: Obama the the Muslim ! No, the USA will not lift a finger to rescue our brave American Heroes under Dictator Obama.
I am sure he is getting ready to make a speech apologizing for the USA causing all the worlds problems and maybe will even beg and say pretty please to Iran if they let our soldiers go free.
To bad Reagan is not here, We would be turning Iran into a parking lot by midnight !!"
The faint hope that this country might rescue itself from the raging storms of calamity instead finds it's keel broken upon the rocks of idiocy. I don't mean to just pick on conservatives although it is the low hanging fruit. They other day as I wrote about the Democratic Congress passing without public discussion a Republican sponsored bill to force Federal and state courts to accept as valid any documents presented by bankers attorneys in foreclosure proceedings. I received this comment on a "progressive" web site,
"Boo F***ing Hoo. Why diary this crap, less than a month from a critical election? As so many are so fond of saying "This doesn't help"
This person described themselves in their screen name as a liberal, really? A liberal that sides with big bankers over struggling home owners? A liberal that thinks bad policy should be ignored if it supports Republicans from our side of the aisle? A liberal that thinks truth should remain silent on the eve of an election.
All across the political spectrum we find childish name calling "Demo rats" and "Republi pukes" until I ask myself, where are we? Are we still in Mrs. Glotfelty's fifth grade class at the Western Avenue school? Is this the true level of American political discussion?
We have indeed met the enemy and he is us, I read one comment that called Michelle Obama "a communist tyrant!" I read the news everyday but I must have missed that one? What did she do? What has she done outside of the parameters of any Republican first lady? I have my problems with Mr. Obama's policies but his wife hasn't done anything I've heard of over the top.
We throw around definitions with little recognition of what they mean until they mean nothing. There aren't enough liberals in Washington to fill a minivan, John Kennedy was a conservative Democrat. Jimmy Carter was a conservative Democrat. Richard Nixon was a moderate Republican. Ronald Reagan was a far right conservative Republican and George W. Bush was an idiot.
Obama is called a Socialist and a Communist yet his policies are much closer to Richard Nixon's than those of either Carter or Kennedy. If Richard Nixon ran against Obama for the presidency Nixon would be the Democrat. Nixon's health care plan was far more generous than Obama's covering dental and mental health with full drug benefits and without a mandate but the Democratic congress voted it down because it turned the nation's health care over to the clutches of big business.
Obama a communist? Not hardly, you know who was a communist? That Jesus fellow, he was always rattling on about redistributing wealth and he even told a rich man he wouldn't be happy until that rich man gave all his wealth away! I'll tell you another bunch of pinko's, the military. Why it doesn't matter how good a sergeant you are you earn the same money as a bad one. Typical communist thinking pay everyone just the same.
It is enough to destroy your faith in the Democratic system that the followers of Christ are the first to shout war. That a Democrat is called a Communist for promoting programs which funnel money into corporate pockets. Programs a Republican would be praised for implementing.
Think Cash for Clunkers was a good idea? How about Billions for Bubble Gum or Dollars for Douche? Government tax cuts to spur investment in a particular product, tax cuts offered only to the affluent. Is that Democratic bottom up economic policy or Republican top down economic policy?
In the latest National Geographic geography test a majority of Americans couldn't find the People's Republic of China on a world map but they know all the words to Lady Gaga songs. A significant portion couldn't find the United States on a world map but could name all the judges on American Idol. They think Macbeth is a new sandwich at McDonald's and Macduff is the crime dog.
We are all in this together and there is only one road up. You don't call a life jacket Socialism on a sinking ship and you don't call sharing a lifeboat communism. It is the running twenty four hour propaganda networks who are partly to blame but there is also a damn lack of intellectual curiosity and of critical thinking. The same people who watch the discovery channel and say "Hey, honey look at the way these bees protect their hive or look at those African elephants protect their herd shout, not with my tax dollars!
"Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so."
Mark Twain