The Jailing Wall

Can anyone please poke a hole in this argument?

Immigration.

Trump's central platform.

Let's assume that immigration is a problem...even though i've not heard any convincing argument to that effect. But for the sake of discussion, let's assume it IS a problem.

If so, trump could end it within a week.

Start with the question, why do undocumented migrants come here? Because we financially incentivize them to do so. They know they can make HUGE amounts of money here, with or without work papers.

So THEY did not create the problem, yes? We did. And to end this, all trump would have to do is get a law passed that makes it illegal for anyone without proper documentation to earn money in the U.S. Then make the penalty for breaking that law so off-the-charts severe, that NO employer, public or private, would dare break it.

Bingo, done. Problem 100% solved, in about a week. Then trump could move on to real problems.

But to pull back this curtain would be to admit our hypocrisy. We WANT illegals here, to do the work we don't want to do. Since slavery's not legal anymore, we want them here as a powerless and exploitable work force.

"Dangerous" immigrants, by the way, including and especially illegals, are more law-abiding than natural citizens.

Donald knows all this. Does his insistence on this phantom problem allow him to create a money train, involving the incarceration of illegals? 90% of all detainees are not kept in INS facilities, but in private, for-profit prisons. Do you imagine that that's a gravy train without kickbacks? Do you imagine someone's not making fortunes off unimaginable suffering?

Have you ever heard of the fallacy of attacking the branches of a problem, while ignoring the roots? That's all that this wall nonsense ever was.

Can anyone poke a hole in this?

Anyone?

trump v. kamala

As America slumps into trump 2.0, we're asked to believe that this time he won the popular vote!

In my half-century, i've never had such a hard time believing any such result could be possible.

When trump appeared again as a candidate, i gave him no chance of winning his party's nomination. As ducks go, he seemed deceased-beyond-doubt. He'd lost the previous election by seven million - a drubbing of devastating proportion.

Even if he did well in the primaries, it didn't seem possible the republicans would allow themselves to be represented by an historically-divisive candidate who needed to swing more than three million votes to his side. Trump's personality and policies are so polarizing, the idea of anyone changing their mind about him seems...beyond dubious.

In other words, "undecideds" and trump seem mutually exclusive.

On top of that, what were trump's main accomplishments in the four years since losing to biden? What things would be foremost in people's minds? He incited a riot, and became a convicted felon.

As you might expect, riots and felons poll EXTREMELY low among conservatives. I suspect that most of us know at least one conservative (especially veterans or police) who voted for trump in 2020, but refused to ever do so again. So beyond the need to sway three million who had voted against him, he had also lost a percentage of his own base. Therefore my confusion was at its peak NOT after the general election, but the primaries. It just felt inconceivable that the republicans would allow this to happen, unless they knew something we all didn't.

There was one factor working in trump's favor. In the past four years, eighteen states enacted voter suppression laws targeting minorities. So any republican candidate was going to do better. But over three million votes? No.

Due to trump's assault on wimyn's rights AND the presence of a female rival, it was a bedrock certainty that he would lose the female vote.

Due to the racist label around his neck AND the presence of a rival of color, it was a bedrock certainty that he would lose the black vote.

We're asked to believe that hispanics went his way? For them, the number one image associated with trump is brown children crying in cages.

We're asked to believe that RFK supporters jumped to trump? I can believe some democrats lost faith in biden/harris. But to propose that any liberal could love their preferred candidate enough to accept donald as an eleventh-hour alternative? Simply not credible.

Trump's numbers went up among the very young? This is the most troubling allegation - partly because i can confirm the possibility. I know one person voting in their first election, whom i'd call smart and caring...yet he DID vote for trump. One would think the young would be the MOST immune to trump's old, white fear/hate rhetoric...

Did America's racist/sexist demons squeak out one last gasp? That seems a shaky proposition, because we've already elected a president of color, and a female president.

They say that with every new election, you have to throw the previous results out. Trump lost in 2020 because of covid, which wasn't hanging around his neck this time? Under normal circumstances, that might be true. But again...historically-divisive.

There is an unscientific flavor to this analysis. But i think it's worth sharing, because my circle of association is wide. I have a blue collar job, but also walk in the white-collar world, due to artistic and family connections.

For the first time in my life, this just doesn't feel credible.

medical/dental

Law proposal: that each individual's total yearly medical/dental bill may not exceed the size of their previous year's tax return. If one got no tax return, all medical/dental work is free.
A stopgap on the way to a genuinely humane system - the only people it's going to affect are those in poverty. Isn't humanity ready for a society whose every policy ISN'T an act of violence against the poor?
Get the petitions. Call your congressperson.

T.R.U.M.P.

Temporary regressive uber-narcissist misogynist president?

21st century

The great american question of the 17th century - who ARE these pink-skinned assholes?
The great american question of the 18th century - what loyalty is owed a government that keeps rich men from their profits?
The great american question of the 19th century - what loyalty is owed a government that tolerates racial slavery?
The great american question of the 20th century - what loyalty is owed a government that tolerates gender slavery?
The great american question of the 21st century - what loyalty is owed a government that tolerates POVERTY?

truth in advertising

Take a breath.
If you're trying to wrap your mind around this most recent charade we call an election, let me offer some perspective.* Those of you who are galled and appalled, now you understand the burning outrage felt by bigots over the past eight years. So here he is, folks, your obama karma! What, you didn't think there would be a price to pay? An interesting thought, but let's call it bullshit, as karma is probably just an invention by which disempowered people are encouraged to feel "better" about themselves.
So here's a better perspective - perhaps now you're beginning to understand how most women, poor people, and every "person of color" have felt about every president from washington through the bush baby. Rich white males on parade, from george to george! That human being up there, while perhaps president of something, is NOT my leader. I don't know him, and he certainly doesn't know me.
Or yet another? In the big picture, there is no difference between trump and clinton. None. Put either in office, and four years from now, nothing of any real substance will have changed. I'm not saying the surface differences won't be infuriating, but...
We will still live in a system that perpetuates abject poverty, both here and anywhere else in the world we do "business".
We will still be a country with less than 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners.
We will still spend nearly as much on weapons of death as the rest of the world combined.
And if it is to be trump, we will finally have a president who represents what we've become. Not for a long time has there been a president who accurately reflected our national personality in the global community. Not since FDR, if ever. After World War II, the american economic empire kicked into high gear. Our empire has been more understated than the romans or ottomans, but far more pervasive. And no less bloody, with our wars, the forced "relocation" of indigenous populations, and the genocidal dictators we've kept in power. We have a thousand military bases on foreign soil - what's the going rate, one barrel of blood to one barrel of oil?
And despite our great P.R. - i mean, we've got the United Nations, right? - we have grown increasingly dismissive of that body when we don't like what it asks us to do. We have violated U.N. Security Council resolutions over forty times - more than any other member nation, by far. By our own definition, we fit the description of "rogue nation". Iran, North Korea, and us. Good company.
Is a compassionate black man, a true representative of what we've become?
Was a genial father figure like dwight eisenhower a true representative?
A greedy, deceitful, violence-loving narcissist.
Trump would be, at long last, truth in advertising.
Yet ironically, he might be the best thing to ever happen to this country. With one exception, every president since nixon has been a friendly face. It's caused a cognitive disconnect between our behavior and our self-image. If we finally have a president whose personality is as repulsive as our policies, the american people might at long last stand up and say, "No. This is not who we are. We do not accept this."
Of the people, by the people, for the people. Our founding fathers, being rich white men, lacked the motivation to create a system where those words could actually be manifest. But perhaps in spite of themselves, they pointed the way.
Of, by, and for. It's time to not just live up to those words, but do them one better.
A country of all people. So obvious, it's been staring us in the face.
A country by, and for...
All people.

*And mind you, i'm not saying we should just accept this and deal with it as best we can. If a plurality of americans insist on having the president we actually elected, there's an easy way to accomplish that - a unilateral national labor strike. No one works, or enacts business of any sort, until the democratically elected president is installed, and the electoral college abandoned.

the non-rich party

THE NON-RICH MANIFESTO
The end of the era of rich and poor is in sight.
The wealth/poverty system is the most catastrophically failed experiment in the history of our (or any other) species, for it has propelled us not only toward our own extinction, but the likely extinction of all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
In terms of our stewardship of this delicate ecosystem we call Earth, the rich/poor era has been an unmitigated failure. Our oceans are dying. The air and land are less lucky.
In moral terms, the rich/poor system has been a failure so apocalyptic as to beggar exaggeration. There is no level of poverty, brutality, and degradation the system will not tolerate. A million accountants could never catalog the litany of abuse and murder inflicted upon billions since the first farmer declared "This pile is mine, not yours". Our sins against other species are even more heinous.
And yet for all the fear and obedience the poor have rendered to the rich, the ultimate power of life on this planet rests now where it always has - with the poor. If every worker in the world put their hands in their pockets tomorrow and said "NO MORE", the greatest revolution in human history would be fought, won, and done.
If we are to save our tenuous existence on a dying planet, the following truths must be recognized and embraced.
Every tiniest patch of land, every cloud in the sky, every puddle or ocean belongs to all, equally.
The responsibility for every tiniest patch of land, every cloud in the sky, every puddle or ocean belongs to all, equally.
The first global human labor strike will be to establish the universal four-hour workday. This is not revolutionary, but a return to the natural human condition. Before the agricultural revolution made us slaves to our own cleverness, the average foraging human worked 2.5 hours a day - total.
The four-hour day will allow each and all to treat their work with that rarest quality - eagerness. More importantly, it will return to us our lives. We will spend our newfound freedom improving our minds, caring for others, and above all indulging in our natural needs for love and play. It is pure fantasy to think that humanity needs to work sixteen, twelve, ten, or even eight hours...a truth that only increases with each passing generation, for our cleverness has created machines of staggering efficiency, and crops that produce yields unimaginable to our ancestors.
Ultimately, we will learn that we needn't even be slaves to the four-hour day, as freedom will make us more responsible and productive. We will each define for ourselves how we can best serve our communities, and the world at large. In serving others, we will come to understand that we serve ourselves.
As a gesture of our non-violent intent, we will begin the transformation of our species within the confines of the existing system, at least in those lands that have (or claim to have) free elections. We will choose write-in candidates for the non-rich party. As the non-rich make up 99% of humanity, the odds of ever being challenged in any open election are slim indeed.
To reinforce the notion that the unequal distribution of wealth is over, particularly in those parts of the world which do not admit free elections, one or two additional global human strikes may be required.
For a generation or so, there will be a period of adjustment as we figure out how to restructure human society. There will be confusion, as humanity has become thoroughly steeped in the selfishness and hierarchy upon which the poor/rich system is based. But the transition will happen, as we'll be returning to normal human nature - a growing body of scientific evidence tells us that before agriculture, we were creatures of profound non-violence and radical sharing. Since the last 20,000 years of greedy brutality make up less than 1% of human history, we are confident our DNA hasn't been irreparably corrupted.
So send word to the farthest corner of the Earth. It's time for our fractured species to become whole again - all women, all men, all colors, all together. The resistance to the non-rich revolution will be far less impressive than you might imagine...and not only because all the military enforcers are non-rich. The rich will return to humanity, because many of their educations have not been so stunted as the people they oppress. Once the first millionaire and billionaire dominoes embrace sanity, the rest will quickly follow.
Let the non-rich party and its candidates organize. Let the first global human strike be planned. Let this gentle, caring species be reborn.

obramney

I avoided writing this article before the election...though i might have given in to temptation yesterday, had my internet not gone out (lingering hurricane aftereffects). I didn't want to write this before, because i felt like i had drunk the Obama kool-aid, and didn't want to base an article simply on my own desires or agenda...particularly with something as nebulous as national politics.
But i gotta say, that Romney fella genuinely scared me. I found myself torn over my country's response to him. On the one hand, i was proud that we had advanced so far on the path of pluralism, that a whole lot of middle America actually embraced a mormon candidate. On the other hand, there was a part of me that desperately wanted a much larger part of the conversation to be along the lines of "A mormon? In our highest office, a MORMON???" This had little to do with my feelings on religion, but rather that it felt like progressives were being hoisted by our own petard. That people like me who had so long preached acceptance and tolerance, had succeeded perhaps too well.
Ironically, there is a touch of intolerance in my own sentiments here...but a touch that might be justified. All religious texts have embarrassing, regressive tenets, but mormonism might outdo 'em all. And i'm not even talking about the magic underwear - i don't know of any other religion so fundamentally based on racism and sexism. The fact that mormon scriptures aren't ancient makes them perhaps even more dangerous, as devotees might take a more literal view of words written by a founder whose very existence isn't a bit lost in the shrouds of time. Governor Romney was once a high-ranking official of a church with a modern history of violent, bloody intolerance...and a lot of people chose to not be bothered by that, either through ignorance or misplaced idealism.
All that aside...is there anyone who thought we'd see a mormon major-party presidential candidate before a jew or a non-believer? I am at once proud of, and horrified by, my fellow americans.
If i tell you that i was puzzled by those who thought Obama hadn't earned a second term...is that just my hippie, progressive, one-world idealism? Facts can be slippery in this kind of debate, but is it not basically true that his first term brought the following:
-The end of an ill-advised war (like there's any other kind)
-The saving of the american automotive industry
-The death of the world's #1 terrorist
-The implementation of socialized medicine, an idea so "radical" that every other industrial nation in the world embraced it long ago
-The first President in history to support gay marriage (this is one of those things that seems progressive, but isn't - specifically, it's progressive in the little picture, but not the big one)
The only major black mark against him is debt and deficit levels that are usually only seen at the end of republican administrations. But how fair is it to lay that at his feet? When he came into office, the american economy was in its second-worst crisis EVER. Pundits and prognosticators saw only worsening gloom. Four years later...whatever else has happened, do you hear people making allusions to the Great Depression anymore?
As an alternative to all that, we were offered a predatory Wall Street plutocrat? You remember them, the ones who led us INTO this economic disaster?
For most progressives, nothing may ever match the elation of Obama's first election (except of course for that day in 2024 when we inaugurate our first agnostic, bisexual, asian-american, female President). Yet in many ways, this second term was the real prize all along. A progressive person of conscience and integrity with his last election behind him. Four years during which he doesn't have to play it safe. Four years in which he doesn't have to court anyone.
Apropos of nothing, what is it with me and swing states? I spent my childhood in Ohio, my youth in Pennsylvania, and my early adulthood in Florida.
Anyway...the dust has settled, and i cast my vote for the first winning President of my life (given my record, i was almost tempted to go the other way). I missed the last election when i was called out of state to help my mom. Before that, there was a little Nader, and a whole lot of Perot.
For a jaded cynic, it feels kind of nice.

it's selling fear?

The NYC metro transit subway system is glutted this summer with an ad campaign courtesy of the MTA itself. Ubiquitous on trains and in stations is a poster that carries the bold caption "What's Wrong With This Picture?" The accompanying illustration is the interior of a subway car. In the foreground is a seated rider. He is latino. His collar, literally blue. A goodly, hard-working man of integrity, there can be no doubt. The seats next to him are unoccupied. Under the bench, two seats away, a (gasp) unattended package sits.
What's wrong with this picture, indeed.
The man stares ahead, oblivious to the symbolism threatening to explode all over him.
I've taken to carrying a small post-it pad, and writing over and over the words "It's selling fear?" I'm sure i can't recall what i'm doing with these notes, and what i'll keep on doing until the pad runs out. I'm sure i'm not doing anything that could be construed as illegal graffiti.
Is it even legally possible to deface public property with a product guaranteed to leave no sign it was ever there?
How about with invisible ink?
Well, somebody's got to give the lawyers something to do...

billionaires for millionaires

I attended a protest today, right here in Jersey City. Sponsored by MoveOn.org, it was held outside a Wells Fargo branch, in protest of the fact that many of this country's biggest corporations exploit loopholes to avoid paying any taxes...in the case of Wells Fargo, that's five billion dollars. Teachers are losing their jobs, social services are being slashed, the middle class is disappearing, and corporate America is having a party. We're talking to you, G.E., Exxon/Mobil, Bank of America (hissss), Chevron, Boeing...the list goes on and on. Here's Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, to tell you about it:
http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2011/04/17/10-top-corporate-freeloaders-in-america/
I don't want to say the protest was underattended. But if the decibel level of a crowd measurably increases when one more voice shows up...well, i'm loud, but i shouldn't be that loud.
It was a good experience though. Good people. And despite the serious intent, there was time for fun. There were three fellows on the edge of the crowd dressed in tuxes, heckling the speakers. At first, i thought they were actual corporate reps. Then i looked closer. They had dollar-sign ties, blingy chains, cigars, and martini glasses. They addressed the crowd at one point as members of Billionaires for Millionaires, and they were hysterical. With names like Philip Maipokets and Filmore Barrels, they were absolutely talented. They were off-script, deflecting the heckles of the crowd, and never missed a beat (unless that one heckler was a plant...hmmm). But whatever, they were brilliant.
The only point i disagreed with was the movement to keep gas prices down. Ixnay that. We need to double gas prices. Triple them. More. Only when gas becomes so expensive that American business and consumers can no longer afford the road, will we sever our addiction to fossil fuel. So what can be done about the corporate freeloaders, aside from making as much noise as we can with our representatives? Hit 'em where it hurts, in the pocketbook. A couple of selective nationwide boycotts - let's say G.E. and Carnival. Over the next year, let no patriot in this land buy one single G.E. bulb, or take one Carnival Cruise.
Spread the word.

corporot

(I've had this article in mind for many weeks, but it was so devoid of wit, pith, or the faintest whiff of originality, that i'd been unable to bring myself to write it. I can finally do so, now that i have an anecdote to add. All hail the mighty anecdote. Bow down to the anecdote!)
I recently made my first foray into the world of capitalism.
Up to this point in my life, i'd never made any speculative investment, or gambled for anything other than fun. Last month, that changed. And the fact that i "scored" has NOT made me feel terribly dirty, i must say.
I've recently had a mild fascination with japanese actor Sora Aoi. She started out in porn, then crossed over into "legitimate" films. Her appeal is understandable. She's got a baby face, and large, real-looking breasts. I've not seen her porn, and MAN, WOMAN, AND THE WALL is her only film i'd recommend. It's likely to spark lively discussion and debate if viewed with the right company, plus she's at her most beautiful. She touches the reptilian part of my brain that says MUST FUCK, MUST FUCK. Please don't take that as any sort of affirmation of the paradigm that equates breast size with attractiveness...teeny breasts can be stunning. But the fact that Sora is an Asian woman with big melons, is indisputably part of her allure. Her film TSUMUGI, a bit of a darling with the critics, didn't do much for me. And SIREN nearly ended my Sora fascination...it's just abysmal, and on top of that, she doesn't look very good (again, pardon my reptilian shallowness, but stretch marks don't do much for me, especially on a water demon).
But back to capitalism. I acquired these movies through Amazon.com. I look for music and films there, as you can find some rob-esque bargains. I sell things, too. I rarely buy anything beyond a single-digit price. SIREN and TSUMUGI were around $20, so i didn't rush to purchase. I finally grabbed SIREN when it became rich with investment potential. Based on the reviews, i suspected i might not want to keep it. When there was only one used copy left, and new copies were priced at over $50, i made my move. If i watched it and re-listed quickly, i would own the only used one, and could perhaps set my price. The film was crap, and the plan worked brilliantly. My sell price was $33, and within a week, i snared a fish. I don't know a T-bill from a T-rex, but that's an impressive return on investment.
Okay, maybe i do feel the tiniest bit dirty.
My original article (remember, the original article?) is very much about capitalism. And democracy. Which of those systems is more at the heart of our nation? It seems hard to deny that capitalism is kicking democracy's ass. When 1% of the population controls 50% of the assets, you have a formula which has historically ended with people swinging from a street lamp. Not in the fun way.
The middle class, which has a little extra time and money to fight for democracy, is so pacified by American Idol and the New York Yankees and whomever the hell the "Kardashian sisters" are, and so piss-afraid of exiting the middle class in the wrong direction, that the barons of industry go unchecked. The level of acceptable greed in this country has become so bald-facedly vomitous, that people without souls are nurtured and rewarded, instead of being smacked in the nose. If you think Enron was an aberration, your head is so far up your ass that you can almost peek out of your own throat.
Capitalism just needs better regulation? Insufficient regulations let us down? I applaud your optimism. But if you think every politician isn't bought and sold by the time they reach the state level, you're a bigger idiot than me (and i'm quite the idiot).
The big secret in our society...the thing that corporations hope the little person will NEVER understand, is that the disempowerment the average american feels is completely unfounded.
The power to control our nation is at our fingertips, so close at hand that we're all under some sort of pathological spell, to not see it sitting there. I'm not talking about the ballot box, or organized movements with protests and marches and folk songs. Let's give Pete Seeger a little rest, the man's 127.
What is the essential power in this country?
Money.
Where does corporate income come from?
Us.
U.S. corporations are wealthier than most foreign countries. Who funds them? We do. We have the power to shift the way money is distributed in this country. And we can do so in almost no time. If everyone stops pouring money into corporate businesses, they'll disappear.
We can't afford to feel powerless, because our window of opportunity is closing.
When you buy bread, or nails, or books, or that inflatable rubber Rockette, DON'T GO TO THE CORPORATE STORE. Go to the small business. Do it now, do it today. Small businesses are disappearing.
Is the small business immune to corruption? Of course not. In this society, maybe one person in a thousand will choose decency over greed. But the difference, and all the difference in the world, is that the small business owner is there in front of you. DIRECTLY ACCOUNTABLE to the people they service. If they act shady, the community will stop patronizing them, give them dirty looks, and even maybe stop having sex with them.
While we're at it, there's one more piece of economic muscle it's time to flex. Banks have acted appallingly, and it's time to hold them accountable. I myself had some fraudulent credit cards appear in my name. My bank, Bank of America, promptly shut down my own card. I had a spotless record with them, but without a single question, they shut me down. They then upped the interest on my remaining balance to 25%. My reward for a nine-year spotless record.
Tear up your credit cards, get back to cash, before the corporate world does away with it. Perhaps it's time to leave the banks altogether, and start an account at the local credit union. What the heck's a credit union, you say?
You'll be glad you asked.
It's time for democracy to kick the barons of greed off their perch and take back this country, before it's gone.
It's time to stop poor Mr. Jefferson spinning in his grave.

capitalist nightmare

Last night, i dreamt that i was with a business associate, working out of a temporary office in a new high-rise building. We were both new to the job. Our company had rented a conference room, and set up flimsy room dividers and logos, trying to give the appearance of solidity. We were trying to sell some product or service to potential clients. We shucked and jived, always walking a high-wire act in danger of being exposed as insubstantial. Many of our marks walked out, but we were unfazed. One visitor saw through our facade, shook our walls a bit, and left. We suddenly noticed a news telecast about a man who had been found with knife wounds, and died. We knew they would trace the murder to us, as the victim had been a potential client who had left our building after receiving the fatal wounds. I was pretty sure we had repeatedly stabbed him, but my memory was hazy, as our obsessive focus had been on making the sale. My partner and i quickly but quietly made plans to throw each other under the bus, as we knew that the authorities were probably outside the building already. We tried to think of any escape plan, content to sacrifice each other.
Sometimes the connection between dreams and consciousness is tenuous. Other times, the connection is as obvious as a draft-dodging leader taking a photo op in a military uniform. The thoughts in our mind as we drift to sleep are soon enacted in the imaginarium of our dreams.
Yesterday, i tried to explain to my ex-cold warrior father that the U.S.-Soviet conflict had nothing to do with capitalism vs. communism, as Russia was communist in name only. One might charitably say that the conflict was between capitalism and socialism, but even that misses the mark by a good margin. The U.S. had a free market economy and the U.S.S.R. was state-controlled, but the Soviet Union's brand of socialism was closer to facist totalitarianism (like every other "communist" government of the past century), and our own brand of capitalism had been gradually turning socialist ever since the thirties. Ask yourself this: do you approve of social security? Congratulations, you're a socialist. You disgust me, you bleeding pinko.
Trying to explain to a cold warrior that he wasn't fighting communism, however, is a bit like painting in a blizzard. The thrust of my explanation was that a strong central government is inherently anti-communist, as communism is a system of no government at all. But this sounds like anarchy, which is how my father took it.
A better angle to use is the question of ownership. In communism, everybody owns everything. Everyone has a stake in every aspect of society, and decisions are made by short-term, elected "governments", through majority agreement. Understood in those terms, communism is profoundly more democratic than the bloated plutocracy the U.S. had become by the time of the Cold War.

conlibserverativeal

We live in the most politically divisive era since the Civil War, so they say.
I suspect they're full of shit, in the sense that the "average person", whether in Manhattan or Muncie, doesn't really care too much about all that. We all want to live safely and freely and make the world a better place for our children. That's pretty much it. Well-intentioned people, regardless of zip code, will most always get along.
But somebody out there has been pounding the hate drums of divisiveness. That somebody seems to be the media, and the neo-cons.
I've never identified with liberal or conservative, democrat or republican. Even my youngest mind perceived an element of nonsense there, so i've always been registered independent. Out of sheer disbelief that Bush had become his party's candidate, Gore was the first major party candidate i voted for (go Perot...twice!). So with Kerry. Mind you, i've never had faith in the integrity of our elective system. The electoral college seems an outright assault on democracy, and i was stunned when ballots became computerized. Or rather, i was stunned that more people weren't stunned. At least if you're going to rig a hand-counted election, you're going to have to work to do it. But i've long been convinced that our elections are well-fixed, even in places not called Florida and Ohio. Whatever pressure was brought upon Gore to give up his claim to the presidency, that's probably a nasty story that won't be told for a long, long time.
Currently our media, led by Fox, is displaying a conservative bias. But before you get upset, let's acknowledge that for decades our media had a slight liberal bias, epitomized by Walter Cronkite, one of the most respected men ever. Even though this bias was well-intentioned, a bias it was. And again, lest you get too upset over our current situation, well, i find the current conservative media movement fascinating. It almost seems like it's been constructed to self-destruct. If the forces of liberalism had been allowed to choose the voices of conservatism, wouldn't they have picked people like Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Coulter? Limbaugh has already de-toothed himself with hypocrisy. O'Reilly is a bully with anger issues. Try getting one of his fans to repeat "O'Reilly is fair and balanced" three times; only the zealous will make it through with a straight face. Coulter is uncomfortable around intelligence, and sometimes seems just a twitch away from a nervous breakdown. None of these people will ever be treated with Cronkite-like respect. And going a step further, if the liberals were to choose a conservative president, wouldn't they pick someone unintelligent and un-American? Irrefutable fact: Bush's comment "you're either with us, or against us" is the most un-American sentiment any president has ever uttered. There's just something a bit tawdry and obvious about it all. If you want a deeper understanding of bias in the media, read Al Franken's "Lies": he may be dismissive of a slight historical liberal media bias, but unlike the leaders of current conservative media, he doesn't lie.
Frankly, it's been a long time since there has been an actual liberal/conservative debate in this country. Arguably the last major political figure who was a genuine conservative was Barry Goldwater. Because my father was conservative, i grew up with an anti-conservative bias. But look at the things that Goldwater stood for, and you may find that true conservativism is mostly honorable and well-intentioned, and is just as needed as liberalism. I feel great empathy for conservatives, as they watch the neo-cons run loose. For the record, neo-cons are not conservative. No conservative government would ever run up the kind of beyond-staggering debt we are now in. There are elements of my father's conservativism that have possibly made me a better person, my aversion to debt being the one example i can think of. And if i may digress, i think i'm finally able to enunciate what was wrong with Reagan. The man was our leader for eight years, and i realize now i haven't the foggiest notion of what he stood for...although he did have the wherewithal to note that his vice-president's eldest son was shiftless and insubstantial.
Don't bash the conservatives. It's the liberal's job to be more forward-thinking than the conservative. As a result, liberals will generally attract more intelligent constituents. But don't bash the conservatives. Liberalism run amuck leads to...well, Switzerland i suppose, which doesn't sound too bad. But don't bash the conservatives. They're in as much pain over Bush as the rest of the world.
As for my feelings on the upcoming election, i've been frankly a bit puzzled by the Hillary/Obama divisiveness. Why would anyone feel the need to choose sides? Years ago i vowed i would vote for any major party candidate who ever came along, who was not a white male. So either way it's Christmas morning. Obama's got my vote and i'm not even interested in his politics, as the military-industrial complex will probably control the next president just as they've controlled the rest of 'em in my lifetime.
Go get 'em, Barack. Make me not a cynic, i dare ya.

the land where i grew

In the land where i grew you could say what you thought
I loved my land

In the land where i grew pink-skinned men ruled, but things were getting better
I loved my land

In the land where i grew religion was kept from government halls
I loved my land

In the land where i grew you couldn’t go wherever you wanted
A land of fences, but i had hope

In the land where i grew we learned that bad men torture
I loved my land

In the land where i grew many “crimes” had no victim
But i had hope

In the land where i grew people faced death and horror to reach our shores
I loved my land

In the land where i grew leaders lied
Maine Lusitania Pearl Tonkin 9/11
Because we didn’t want war

In the land where i grew children starved
While we spent as much on death machines
As the rest of the world combined

In the land where i grew “electoral college” and “classified”
Took away our power to choose our leader
Took away our truth

In the land where i grew “defense” budget became a lie
In the land where i grew the unconvicted are jailed
In the land where i grew the helpless are tortured
We’ve ignored Mr. Jefferson for 182 years
A beautiful dream is done
And life calls forth
A brighter one