Happy 4th Of July!

This weekend let's put aside our differences and celebrate the birth of our Nation!

Happy Independence Day!

Working

I've been doing a little house cleaning here, changed the look, moved some stuff around, still plenty to do tho. Some links and widgets are out of date, others just won't work, guess yer gonna have that.  Not sure who's comment service I'm using, think it's Blogger's, but it works and that's good enough for the moment.  I also need to go thru my link list and see what and who is still active.  I hate to delete links tho, you never know when someone will get bitten by the bug and pop up again with something to say, so if there's a site at the end of the link, active or not, I'll leave it.  A lot of people have put a lot of effort and love into those sites, and if nothing else, they can serve as archives.

So, while I work behind the curtain, I'll leave you to ponder this. 

Little blast from the past...



Let's update this, ok? So what, exactly, have we learned over the last 45 years or so? You tell me...

An Exhumation (and Reincarnation)

For some reason, a reason I have not yet fully fathomed, I have decided to exhume this old blog and try to make it readable again.  There is a lot here - years of my thoughts and realizations, which I am reluctant to bury, some good, some awful, but mine none-the-less.  I started this blog in order to combat the lunacy of the Aways Wrong Right during the years of the George "Dubya" Bush debacle.  Motivated by my brother, Scroff, I joined other Progressive bloggers in an attempt to counter the Right's lies and insinuations, hence my participation in the American Patriot Institute.  How, I reasoned, could we who had served be labeled Un-American and traitors?  The swiftboating of a legitimate war hero, John Kerry, showed me that in Right Wing politics there is no room for "reason" of any kind.  This was only reinforced by the Right's lame efforts to discredit Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential elections.  Indeed, to this day, their claims that he is a Muslim, (as if that in itself should disqualify him somehow in a country founded, in part, on religious freedom), or that he is not a natural born citizen, still ring from the mouths of the Right Wing shills on Fox News and from the likes of Rush Limbaugh on Right Wing Radio, and is eagerly consumed by legions of common working folk, too scared or bamboozled to act in their own best interests.  (Face it, the wealthy, who are for the most part, the Real Republicans, are far too educated and intelligent to fall for such blatant nonsense.)  With the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States, I naively considered the battle won and slowly withdrew from the field.

But it is not politics that draws me back.  Rather it is death. The death of four good friends over the last eight months.  I have come to see my own vulnerability and mortality and it is this realization, that tomorrow should never be taken for granted, that motivates me now.  There is no more "later".  There is only now for me, and if there is to be a "later" for someone-else, a later that involves a truly free country, with equal opportunities and real justice, a later in which all the sick are treated and all the hungry fed, a later where all children are able to reach their potential, where war is a last resort and not a method of strong arm diplomacy, where good, hard working men do not die in mines or offshore oil rigs to feed the Corporate Coffers of soulless, arrogant men, then I must act now.

No longer can I sit by while our work is shipped offshore and our hardworking citizens left to languish in fear, choosing between eating, medical care or paying bills, as rich Republicans deny even the smallest bit of help by refusing to extend unemployment benefits. No longer can I bear to watch once proud workers who built our nation and raised our families struggle, with no help at all from their fellow citizens while Big Banks, Oil Companies and Automakers feed freely at the public trough!  Welfare is evil and only encourages laziness! Unless it is Corporate Welfare under the guise of Bail outs!  Too big to fail is too big to exist! That is real free market economics!  Socialism works fine for Mismanaged Corporate giants, for Wall Street... but not for Main Street! Main Street is told to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and carry on as the rugged "Real Americans" always have, and the illusive carrot that is dangled is "work hard and you too can join the ranks of the wealthy"!  Ah yes, Capitalism at it's best ~ indeed, then let that free market capitalism apply to all.

Myths like the Protestant Work Ethic apply only to the working class!  Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven!  This false promise of reward and social justice in an afterlife is small comfort to the family watching their child die due to lack of adequate healthcare.

It is time to level the playing field.  And that is exactly what I will try to do.  Will you join me?  Will you help me? The future is ours, but we must act now.

d.