Okay, look…

In the recent decision in  Fisher v. University of Texas, in which the court decided in a 7-1 vote to punt the issue back to the 5th Disrict, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote "The Constitution does not pander to faddish theories about whether race mixing is in the public interest. The Equal Protection Clause strips States of all authority to use race as a factor in providing education"

Wonder what would happen if we applied that language to the issue of same sex marriage: …The Constitution does not pander to faddish theories about whether [gender preference in marriage] is in the public interest. The Equal Protection Clause strips States of all authority to use [gender preference] as a factor in providing [access to marital contracts]. 

See how that works?

Come on, really

Can I share with you how tired I am of hearing how so called "Independents" are going to decide the upcoming presidential contest? I am even more tired of hearing people talk about these dorks as if they are  freethinkers who epitomize the spirit of America. If that is true then we are well and truly fucked.

I have no respect for "independents." At best they are disloyal. At worst they are politically rudderless people, lacking any coherent philsophy and the guts to make a stand.

Obama is said to have owed his first election to independents. Then those same people turned against him because he had not fixed the deepest recession since the depression, two wars and broken health care system in the 11 months since he was elected, not to mention his failure to resolve the issue of entitlements and ensuring the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund. Then, a year after that, these same independents were responsible for seating a group of right wing radical wing nuts who made it impossible for Obama to accomplish what they had purported to have elected him for in the first place and abandoned him for failing to accomplish in the first year of his administration.

It is impossible that Obama and Teabaggers could be remotely representative of even segments of a coherent political philosophy. The idea that the future of our country is in the hands of a bunch of fickle, weak minded people who have the loyalty of your basic crack whore tells me in large part what it wrong with it.

And while I am at it I might as tell you how I feel about another group of puported "deciders": the undecided. The idea that someone could be "undecided" up until the day of a presidential election completely eludes me. 18 months of primaries, two televised conventions consisting of 4 days of policy statements (and, admittedly, the droning on of innumerable talking heads who have the personalities of an unpainted baseboard,) followed by 6 weeks of campaigning during which they receive 400 pieces of literature and view a full 24 hours of televised presentations, not to mention hundreds of newspaper editorial endorsements, and these folks can't make up their minds!? I think that they should be stripped of their voting credentials due to a deficit of the cognitive skills necessary to be trusted holding a concealed, loaded vote.

So, pick a freaking side, would ya? Like it or not the US has a two party system and the way to have influence over policy is not to vote for some 3rd party rhetorical sexpot who gets you all excited but has neither the means or the equipment to deliver the goods when that moment of climax comes, leaving you with nothing but an a couple of lawn signs and a wet spot on the sheet.

The way you influence policy is to get involved. Early. Fact is that it is the small town or county level party committees that vet and select the people who end up eventually on the presidential ballot. If the rank and file party members do not support a candidate - or actively disavow her - you will never see her on a ballot. The days of bosses in cigar smoke laden back rooms picking canidates are over.

Tired of the influence of PACs - or Supreme Court enabled corporate organs? I promise you, if every eligible voter in the US sent $25 to the Presidential candidate of their choice, it would obviate the need for the PACS and end their influence. They have got to get the money to run a campaign from somewhere, if we don't provide it, they are forced into the arms of those who will.

So, pick a side. Let go of the fantasy that anyone, no matter how charismatic, is going to balance the budget, expand Social Security, give every American access to health care, bring abiding peace and prosperity and bring all those lost jobs back to these shores. Pick a party whose platform best approximates your general perspective on how the country should be run and who has something more than a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning the damned race. Then you have to support them with your money, your influence and your vote.

Oh and don't expect the candidate to implement all of their campaign promises by the 20th of June.

Have a little patience. And a little gumption. Pick a side.

Compromised positions

Okay, so, what am I supposed to do? I am angry (yeah I know, but I have been angry a lot less recently). Thing is, now I'm angry about something I want to do something about. What I am angry is fallout from activities I have known to be wrong since they raised their ugly little heads a decade ago and all the baggage from years of raging against that evil will not just drop away.

So, bear with me here.

I have opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since the very beginning (on 9/17/01, NPR broadcast my commentary saying that the events of 9/11 were not the basis for a war). When the President shifted the focus from Afghanistan (where there was at least some shred of legitimacy) to Iraq (where there was none), I joined the protest of that action with thousands of others. All to naught. What can a person like me can do to thwart the juggernaut of the military/security industry once its saliva has begun to run?

And now the war is over. The military has achieved its compromised objectives, the military/security industry has squeezed all that it can from the effort, we have declared victory, the troops are coming home, and the specter of war no longer hovers over us.

Really?

Perhaps it's unfair to say so, but I think one of the most infuriating civilian responses here at home to the war was the expression of "support" for the soldiers sent to Afghanistan and Iraq by attaching $1.98 magnetic contrivances - made to look like yellow ribbons - to our vehicles.

What is interesting is that the troops really did not need the support of the citizenry during the war. They were given all the support they needed by the military in the form of training, ordnance, armor, sustenance, succor and the most advanced combat medicine available to a force in a theater of conflict. The magnets were more about the person who bought the magnet than they were about the benificiaries.

But now the situation is quite different. The January 20th issue of The Week magazine (http://theweek.com/article/index/223423/a-tough-homecoming-for-war-veterans), presented a succinct report on the status of the 2.3 million troops who fought in this conflict in the cradle of civilization and the cold ancient mountains that loomed above it. Here is the long and short of it:
* 6179 dead
* 47,000 wounded
* 210,000 treated for PTSD
* 218,000 diagnosed with traumatic brain damage
* Due to the perfect storm of IEDs and greatly improved combat medicine we now have thousands living with significant disabilities, some missing one or two or even three limbs, others with disabilities made more grave by a combination of injuries.
 
This is bad enough, but then there is the toll taken but unrecorded, estimated in numbers tragic in their possibilities: suicides estimated to be occurring once every 80 minutes; domestic violence on the increase - transmitting the damage to another generation. Homelessness, incarceration, mental illness, substance abuse - this is the legacy of the pretense and prevarication that took us into this war.

On top of all of this suffering is an even more compelling problem: there are 900,000 disability claims backlogged at the VA. Almost 1 million people whose disabilities have arisen out of their service to their country - many of them deployed repeatedly, three, four, five times over the course of the war - waiting until the overwhelmed bureaucracy of an underfunded agency can even get to the point of denying them service.

I am not a veteran. I have served in no wars. I have never been wounded in the name of my country, witnessed the horror of the impact of war in a countryside, lived with the anxiety of never knowing when an IED would pop up and destroy me, or worse, my friends.

But as much as I have hated and raged against the wars this country has engaged in, I have never turned against the people who were ordered into those conflicts - often conscripted and unwillingly.

Sadly, my country has. Uncomfortable with the legacy of war, wishing to put conflict and pain behind us, rushing to shift the money once spent on war into projects more appealing to the voters back home, fearing the very people we trained as killers because they have come home with that training, we - both citizens and our elected leaders - have left them, ignored them and abandoned them again and again after every war this country has waged since its inception.

The history of our country is filled with the protests and pleas from the veterans of our wars to keep the promises we made to them when we sent them to fight for us.

Not again. I watched this happen (and even allowed myself to become inured to their plight) with the Vietnam Veterans of my own youth. I cannot watch it happen again.

So,here is what I would like to do. I am asking everyone who bought a ribbon magnet to do one simple thing: If you still have your magnet, put it in an envelope and send it to your federal government. Tell them we cannot abandon our veterans again.

Regardless of my own feelings about the conflict in the Middle East, this is not a partisan effort. But you can be as partisan as you want in executing it. Just send in your magnet.

If you hate Democrats and want to blame it all on them, you can send your package to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
The Honorable Harry Reid
United States Senate
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2803

You can even skip the Honorable part if you can't manage it.

On the other hand, if you would like to deliver the responsibility to the Republicans, it's the Speaker of the House you want to send the package to:
The Honorable John A. Boehner
United States House of Representatives
1011 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-3508

Or you can just send it to the one of the above you think will be more responsive. In the envelope put a note explaining why you are sending the magnet, or put this essay, or simply write "Never Again" in large print on a piece of paper.

If you have thrown your magnet away, buy one, draw one, have your kids draw one, have your kid's class draw thirty of them, put them in a package and put it in the mail. Just send it

Please.

Then drop an email to isentmine@ribbonreturn.com. I will keep a tally and let you know how things are going. You can also join the group "I returned my Ribbon" on Facebook, and follow #Ribbon_Return on Twitter.

If you want to send a link to this post to others, please do. Send it to whomever you think might respond. Send it to as many people as you can. Even to the folks you think it might piss off or offend. Because I believe in my heart of hearts, that no one wants this to happen.

Not again. Not ever again.

Where are they now?

So, here's what's pissing me off (yeah, I know, today). During the Mesopotamian conflict all of the supporters of the war put these freakin' yellow ribbon magnets on the backs of their vehicles saying things like "Support Our Troops", as if not putting them in harm's way in the first place wasn't the most supportive thing one could do for a soldier.

Okay, the war is over. The military/security/industrial complex has sucked all it can from the deserts of the cradle of civilization (and it has become apparent that we are not going to get our hands on all that oil after all) and so we have decided to declare victory and go home. 

My question is: Where are all those ribbons? The true legacy of this conflict is 6700 dead (for the purposes of this particular discussion we are counting only the American casualties), 40,000 wounded, 200,000 treated for PTSD, another million suspected but untreated. A backlog of 900,000 disabiity claims at the VA: people needing but not getting the support promised them when they enlisted. Thirty percent unemployment for the 18-24 cohort of veterans - the kids we recruited out of their developing lives and put on the battlefield. Thirteen percent of veterans unemployed generally compared to 8.5% for the labor force as a whole. Alcoholism is up. Drug abuse is up. Mental Illness is up. Suicide is up. You know, suicide, that action taken when the horrors of war and the cruelty of civilian life converge on the person who risked everything to serve the military objectives of this country.

Where are all those yellow goddamned magnetic ribbons?

If Steve Jobs were a woman...

...he would have been called a stone cold bitch. The infamous rants of "Bad Steve" would have been labeled as "PMSing" and dismissed, or added to the weight of evidence of the female Steve as a "ball-buster" or "castrating female."

I am by no means the first to make note of this contrast, but it serves me well in reiterating a point that I have made before in this sad little egoism I call a blog: considering all the wrongs in this world, the one we must right first is the oppression of women.

Much has been written of late of the last "okay" prejudice; the most recent stirrings have been in relation to "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway. But before that it was fat people and various others have laid claim to the title - people with behavioral health diagnoses, Muslims, etc.

What is never addressed in these various complaints is that within those last "okay" prejudices lies the real one: women. If you think fat people have it bad, fat women have it worse (one of the condemnations of male obese people is that it makes them seem womanish - to be compared to a woman is an insult). If you think Mormons are discriminated against, understand that within the Mormon faith, women are held in prejudice.

Now, some one say that a man writing about women's oppression is simply another case of prejudice - I am assuming that the roles assigned to females are oppressive out of prejudice toward those roles. I will leave others to sort that out. What I know is, as long as it is okay that the ranks of female CEO's is shrinking, that the disparity of wages is accepted (if given lip service), that only men can drive in some cultures, that in some cultures women can be killed simply for doing what men do, I will maintain my prejudice.

To me, the oppression of women is the core of all other wrongs in this world. If you want to improve the lot of Africans, improve the lot of African women; if you want to improve the conditions in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran or Libya, improve conditions for women; if you want to bring Bangladeshis out of the mire of their flooded delta, or bring Myanmar out of the closet, or improve the conditions of all people in the state of Mississippi - improve the lot of their women.

At the heart of all antimodernist (antimodernism being the heart of all ultra-conservative perspectives) movements, be they supporters of Sharia, Christian Reconstructionists or Mormon Fundamentalists, is a dramatic constriction of the liberties of women - often described as a return to basic values.

At the dark, moist heart of the discontent of the Beached White Male is the entry of women into the labor force.

Nothing in the history of the world has been so enduring and so damaging to our global civilization as the organized and sanctioned oppression of women.

If we really want to bring meaningful change to the world, end the oppression of women across it. Every other needed change will descend from that.

For all those purity pledgers

I've never read a more cogent argument against the saving of this nebulous prize. Particularly to give it to some man who will either not appreciate the gift or, worse, use it in come Cro-Magnon accounting of his proper place in the universe.

All's Well that Ends Well
Act 1, Scene 1
Parolles to Helena

There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the
rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity,
is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible
disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin:
virginity murders itself and should be buried in
highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites,
much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very
paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach.
Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of
self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but loose
by't: out with 't! within ten year it will make
itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the
principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

The Energies of Life

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.” 

R. I. Fitzhenry

The question is how comfortable are you with the mystery.

People who know that I do not subscribe to supernatural explanations of events often react as if that understanding of things makes me a nihilist - some dark creature consumed with bleeding life of its significance.

This is quite far from the truth. I take great joy in life and in living. The difference between me and most of these folks is that I am comfortable with the mystery.

There are a variety of logical fallacies used by people who believe in the supernatural, but the first and most apparent problem with that thinking is the idea that things need to be explained in the first place.

Why is there a universe? What is the origin of the human race? Why does evil exist? Why did the crops fail? Why did my son die? Why is that criminal still alive?  All of these questions and many others seem to demand explanation, and surely there is a natural human curiosity that causes human beings to seek explanations. But that is not to say that an explanation is needed. Or that, going forward, if there's is not a practical explanation, a supernatural one is called for.

I don't know how the universe came to be. There are many potential explanations. And the advocates of string theory or multi verses can be as adamant about their speculation as any fundamentalist Christian. Materialists are not immune to bad thinking just because science is "on their side". Or, sweet Jesus, because they are rational (a characteristic no human can rightly lay claim to.)

Although I tend toward practical explanations of things, ultimately I am comfortable with the mystery. I do not need an explanation. That there is not one - or not a satisfactory one - does not create a vacuum, for me, that must be filled by the supernatural.

The funny thing is, my comfort makes the things of the world all that much more miraculous. To me the functional eye is far more miraculous for its evolution than it would be if it were merely created.

Let me put it to you this way: Michelangelo's David is a beautiful creation, I think we can agree.  But imagine how much more amazing it would be that statue grew out of the stone as part of a natural process of erosion.

So, believe in a maker all you want. For me, I am satisfied and often awestruck by a serendipitous universe. There is much I don't understand. That simply means there is much, much more for me to experience.

And who knows, maybe there is a god out there. But I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be more than a little disappointed.