Friday afternoon - Labor Day weekend

Friday Afternoon September 4, 2009 (Labor Day Weekend eve)

. . . .Readership gets slow on holiday weekends, it should, I hope that you're with your family, with people you love, relaxing and enjoying the day.

. . . .Because of that, I sometimes depart from my normal style, and get down off my soapbox for a while, and ramble a little more.

. . . .I won't say "more me", because that would be patently false and untrue. The "me" you read everyday is a large part of who I am, but I don't often let the other parts out.

. . .I was reminded, gently, by someone whom I love and trust that, on occasion, the things that I say, the way I say them, the language I use can bowl people over, can hit them like a bolt of lightning.

. . . .Yes, that's true, and truth be told, it's by design.

. . . . Because I'm outraged, outraged at what's happened in this country; the wingnuts won, the fight's over. I've never, never in over 3 decades of cultural and political observation seen the level of lunacy where it's at right now, never seen the fringe given the media due that it's given on a daily basis.

. . . .And mostly I talk that way because I'm angry at many of you. Angry that some of you let someone like me see it for you, call it out for you. Angry because some of you are standing by and letting it happen; because some of you say "I don't like politics" when every decision you make every day is a political and economic choice. Angry because each and every one of you are smart people, highly intelligent, resourceful, with beautiful minds and souls, with passion and purpose, and you're wasting it, while a country crumbles around you, and you're going to leave the smoking wreckage for your kids and will have done nothing about it, except talk about it, and think about it.

. . . .Faith without works, without action is meaningless, it's dead and empty.

. . . .Frustrated and baffled that the people around me are still acting like it's 1969 and somehow Woodstock meant something, it meant squat. Did everyone standing around in a circle, holding hands and chanting something change a thing? No, it didn't. Look at the world since. It made no difference at all. Did everyone praying and humming at the same frequency change anything? No, it didn't. Does bringing that mentality into today, if we all just sit around and get positive and change the vibrational level, does that change anything? No, it's gotten severely worse in the last 8 months. You really want to know what anniversary everyone should have been observing? The one that counted and taught a lesson? The one that 4 kids at Kent State in Ohio learned in 1969, that putting daisies in gun barrels, peacefully protesting; that of joining together in a peaceful "vibe"; will get you shot, will get you dead.

. . . .And you know what else? Those deaths, they didn't stop one less casket coming home from the war. They didn't stop one less war vet from being someone today who was let down by the health care system, and is homeless and sick. Didn't stop a bit of it.

. . . . .So yeah, for anyone that knows me, and is counted in the big circle of friends I have, they know. They know that I have a gentle side, that when I care, I care deep. That I always will have someone's back, even when they piss me off, and everyone else has walked away from them. That's just me, and that's just the way I'm wired. Yup, I do have a great big passionate heart, and I guard it pretty carefully, and I don't let too many people at all see when something gets to me.

. . . .I'm mad, because some of you are standing around, not knowing what to do, and therefore not doing anything, and you're so powerful and capable.

. . . .And it's not just me, there's hundreds like me, all willing to put ourselves out there, and be the voice for hundreds of thousands of folks who can't bother to take the time to be interested in their country, or the future of their kids and grandkids, and spend their time waiting for someone like me to be their voice and risk something, and somehow feel satisfied that they've done their part.

. . . .Instead, it's a lot easier to do a 10-second cut and paste on Facebook, and let all your friends who already know what your beliefs are, know what they are again.

. . . .Or the best arrogance of my generation; refusing to accept the world on the world's terms, refusing to accept the larger society and culture on their terms and instead living in some fantasy world that somehow they have a unique answer, and if enough people would somehow just listen to them, then it will all get fairy dust sprinkled on it and it will all be magically better. Somehow, the fact that mankind has been on this planet a long time, and societies have been around a long time escapes them, and they truly believe that somehow they've thought of something unique and individual, not realizing that a whole lot of things have been tried throughout history, and the chances are 98% certain that their idea has been tried by someone, somewhere, before and failed. Otherwise, it would still be viable and have life.

. . . .It is all about balance, I get that. There needs to be a break from what is an increasingly crazy, lunatic, grim world, but when that "break" amounts to full-time avoidance well. . . . .I mean, all I'm saying is. . . . .

. . . .And of course, being in tune with the world helps. As I was typing this up and getting it ready, regular reader and contributor Kay sends this one along:

Remember Lee Iaccoca? Have you read his book on leadership?

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 years old and has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.

Lee Iacocca Says:

'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course..'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore..

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions.. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving.

We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble.

Our borders are like sieves.

The middle class is being squeezed every which way.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm.

Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC news or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don 't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America . In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I've learned one thing, it's this: 'You don 't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a "Call to Action" for people who, like me, believe in America '. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough.'

Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at stake!!

. . . .I'm going to go back to what I said up top of this. It's your country, pay attention, and I'm not the only one who's saying what I'm saying. Quite honestly, I hadn't read the book, and it's been ages since I thought about Lee, so my jaw hit the floor, hell, he even sounds like me, or I sound like him, or something. At any rate, folks, suck it up, quit leaving it up to everyone else, quit having damn food fights and squirt gun wars on Facebook and start doing something that counts. Now, and don't wait and quit waiting for someone to point out a direction to you, it's a simple, clear direction, it's called facing Washington straight up, quit having allegiance to a party, quit thinking that somehow if you align yourself with the right "cause", whether it be conservative or progressive that somehow you're on the "right" side and realize that they're all, every one of them, crooks and liars, and quit letting those damn extremist wingnuts have the forum and the podium.

. . . .Take a good look at the following picture, not for sensationalism, but to understand the cost of a war, it's not in dollars and cents, it's in human life. The problem with our wars anymore, as opposed to Vietnam, is that they're sanitary, they're clean, they're made for CNN and they're hidden. That's someone's son laying there, and yes, he has a name, out of respect for his family, I won't give that (and I struggled with that decision). The photo is from the AP, but was yanked yesterday at the request of the Defense Secretary. This Administration is no different than the previous administration, we're fighting a war, but we don't want anyone to be reminded about it. That could be anyone's son, brother, father, uncle, nephew, grandson laying there; from your house, from the house down the street, a kid you coached or watch play in T-ball or Pee-wee football. A soldier, who paid the ultimate price for putting a uniform on in a country half a world away, who will come home in a flag-draped casket and they don't want you to see even that.



. . . .This soldier paid that price because the previous Administration lied through it's teeth, invaded another sovereign nation under false pretenses, deposed the man they'd put in power, the only person in the region who could keep both Afghanistan and Iran in check, and allowed the true perpetrators and criminals behind 9/11 to grow stronger in Afghanistan, embedding the Taliban and Al-Queada throughout the countryside, and now this Administration is folllowing suit and refusing to learn from history and sacrificing our young men and women in a fool's errand.
. . . A mere two decades ago, these same Afghan warlords defeated the mightiest and most fearsome military machine on Earth, the Soviet Army, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Empire.

. . . .This country has now truly gone insane, completely off it's rocker. To think that for a minute that there would somehow be a GOP-brewed "controversy" over the President of the United States addressing kids about staying in school is insane enough. To listen to the number of conspiracy-theory wingnuts, the first people to scream "freedom of speech" and "1st Amendment rights" whenever anyone dares attempt to speak to them about their hate-filled, compeletely traitorous, seditious rants about "communism" and "socialism" as they parrot their great Lord and Master Limbaugh and his Holy Mouthpiece Glenn Beck, the two greatest threats to this Republic that currently exist; to listen to them as they threaten to keep their kids home from school convinces me that we have truly lost this Nation, that it is no longer the United States of America, and that the lunatic fringe, the extremists, the Birthers, the Turfers, the Tea Partiers, the Religious extremists; that entire group, have won. It also completely dishonors that young man, and countless others like him, who met the same fate and who fell in battle for the great ideal that was America, the Nation that prided itself on diversity of opinion, on being always able to come together and reason with one another.

. . . .And now, the official television network of traitors everywhere, Fox, is refusing to carry the President of the United States address to a joint session of the Congress of the United States concerning the one subject that Fox has fixated and obsessed over; deliberately lied about, been the official mouthpiece for treason and splitting the Nation apart; refuses to carry an address about Health Care Reform, in which the President will have the opportunity to address Congress, and specifically, address those members who have been all over Fox lying through their teeth.

. . . .Go ahead, let them. When everyone is living underneath a Christian Taliban rule, a Nation where Fox News is the official State television station and radio, a Nation that lives by the rules of the Religious extremist Right, and did nothing now to stop them, don't be stopping by my cabin. I'll take care of me and mine, and there won't be room for you.

. . . .It's time now to ask a very serious question. Is the Republican Party even a part of the American fabric anymore, a part of the political process? Their actions are traitorous and seditious, abrogate the Constitution of the United States, and they actively undermine the office of the Presidency. All actions that duplicate the National Socialist party of Germany in the latter half of the 1930's, and then as now, we need to be wary of the rise of Hitler-like personage, someone who is a dynamic speaker, someone who sways crowds and segments of society, someone who disguises his agenda under the flag, nationalism and love of country. Someone like Rush Limbaugh.

. . . .The other thing to be watchful for is someone who uses masterful psychology and works with him on the same agenda, a Goebbels, someone who lays out outrageous claims that fly in the face of logic, yet people slavishly follow his every word. Someone like Glenn Beck.

. . . .Joe Klein in his blog, Swampland, at Time.com:

I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday--and the number of people who believe that the President has larded the government with communists (!) was astonishing. One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she'd researched it on the internet. When I asked her afterwards, she said environmental adviser Van Jones, legal advisor Cass Sunstein (who was last spotted being excoriated by the left for supporting the FISA revisions), someone named Lloyd and she didn't remember the fourth. And wasn't it suspicious that Obama had all these czars working for him--that was a Russkie commie term, wasn't it? When I asked, the woman admitted that, among other things, she occasionally listened to William Bennett's conservative radio show. I pointed out that Bennett had once been the Drug Czar, appointed by Ronald Reagan. Life sure can be complicated sometimes.

I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck's fruitful imagination. "We are living Glenn Beck's fantasy life," said this audience member. The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans--a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron--to call bull-- on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation's school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda. That is somewhere well beyond disgraceful.

Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal--rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country--even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long--but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong.

. . . .Chez Pazienze, at his blog Deus ExMalcontent:

"As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education -- it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

-- Oklahoma Republican State Senator Steve Russell, on President Obama's plan to address America's schoolchildren next Tuesday

You know something? I've seen a lot of mind-bending insanity from the right since Barack Obama's election last November, but this seriously tops everything we've been inundated with so far. I rarely use this word, because it feels so cliché and therefore so impotent, but it's outrageous. Just fucking outrageous. I obviously had a real problem with George W. Bush, but even at my most disgusted with his idiocy and his administration's corruption, I never would've marginalized him to the point where I denied him the right to talk to our kids. That's something you don't play politics with; it's above partisanism. And yet Obama's critics don't feel that way. They will turn a simple presidential address to America's kids -- somewhat of a tradition in this country -- into a reactionary dogfight.

He's the president of the United States, which means that if he wants to talk to children, he gets to. That's the way it works. He won the election and therefore, as president, he gets a few perks -- one of them is being able to say, "I want to speak to the youth of America," and not have anyone raise holy hell.

That's really what it's all about, though -- the fact that Barack Obama's political enemies don't actually accept him as president. They consider him an illegitimate -- his presidency some kind of sham, regardless of the overwhelming majority he won back in November of 2008. They've demonized and marginalized him -- called him a foreigner, a socialist, a threat to the American way of life, a cult leader intent on indoctrinating and enslaving our children through sheer force of personality. They bring guns to places he's speaking; they have so little respect for the man or the fact that he won the office he now holds that they intimate that they're willing to cause physical harm to him and his supporters. Seriously, how many times in your life have you heard anyone refer to a sitting president of the United States as a communist and be taken seriously by an entire network news department and its viewers? Have you ever? Even once?

. . . . .Wake up folks, we're losing this entire Nation by tolerating and putting up with the complete lunacy that the Republican Party, Fox News and the Religious Right are fostering.

. . . . . Want proof. Congress's absolutely-no-shit 100% certified complete whackjob, Rep. Michelle Bachmann from Anoka, Minnesota; she of "re-education camps", she of "we need to slit our wrist and make a blood pact to stop health care reform" is putting her hat in ring for a run at President.

. . . .I've been saying it for a while now, and at least someone is admitting it. The real unemployment rate is a little over 16% with 16 million people out of work, not 7 million.

. . . .Krugman, in his blog in the New York Times, this morning:

Just a brief reminder. Industrial production is now rising; so, probably, is real GDP. Given the way the official business cycle dating committee dates recessions, this probably means that the recession — again, as officially defined — is over.

But unemployment is still very high and rising. As Calculated Risk points out, long-term unemployment — which is the most destructive in human terms — is at its highest level recorded since the Depression.

And the purpose of stimulus is, first and foremost, to mitigate unemployment. The fact that the economy may be technically in recovery is irrelevant.

. . . .I do this for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of knowing what they do, what they believe, what they know is right. I do it for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of faith, hope, love, hate, justice, war and peace.

. . . .I do it because I believe in justice, in all it's forms.

. . . .I do this everyday for the people and kids who are tattoed, pierced and inked and keep getting told to get "into the mainstream". I do this everyday for those guys who wear black that you don't understand, you just know there's something about them, and that when the chips are down, when you have to walk down a dark alley somewhere, and you know what's waiting for you at the end of it, and you can only take one person with you, that's who you want walking with you, because you know you'll come back out alive, and that guy doesn't care what it costs him.

. . . .I do this everyday for the outcasts, the misfits, the ones who don't fit and who will turn their back on you and walk away when you try to make them fit into a mold. I do it everyday for everyone who does it their way, knows that they're paying a high price for it, but the freedom is worth the cost.

. . . . I do this everyday for outlaws, cowboys, renegades, pirates and fallen angels. I do it everyday for the people who understand that rock and roll can save their soul, that redemption can be found in a 3-chord lick from a vintage Les Paul. I do it for the men and women who aren't afraid to turn it all the way up, who keep looking for an 11 setting on a volume knob that only goes to 10, who know that rock and roll's got nothing to do with age.


. . . .If right now, you're doing something you don't want to do, stop it. If you've surrounded yourself with people who want you to do or be something other than who you are, walk away. If you've got people around you who actually let it slip out that they think you "should be doing (fill in the blank here)" and it involves your life, your future, your existence as an individual, walk away, right now, and don't look back. You don't owe anyone anything. Live fearlessly. If the people around you can't accept it, can't accept you as you are, really are, they aren't and weren't friends anyhow.

. . . .Don't march to anyone else's drumbeat, don't drink the Kool-Aid, anyone's. Right, Left, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan. Use your own mind, that's why you were given one. Examine, question, do what's right for you first, everything else will fall in place from there, quit looking for the path, you're already on it.

. . . .Come out of the gate each morning with both barrels blazing, pedal-to-metal, full-tilt boogie, all-in and balls-out, what's stopping you? Do you want to live forever? That'd be boring.

. . . .Got your back. somewhere out there in the night

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This ain't no dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right fucking here, right fucking now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. What have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now.

The Desolation Angel
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell

You know someone lik