The Time is Now

In the days of my youth social struggle was our calling.  There were many movements working for change, and some people within those groups called for violence.  It was hardly surprising since the cruelty and viciousness directed toward the vulnerable, the disenfranchised and the socially unacceptable were pronounced, institutionalized and even codified by organized religion.  People of color, women, children, the disadvantaged and disaffected were in point of fact the property of – Emancipation Proclamation notwithstanding – the white-male establishment.  That stratum of society itself was ranked by hierarchical privilege into the moneyed and powerful at the top and those who, along with the marginalized just mentioned, earned that money and surrendered that power falling far to the bottom.

Into the maelstrom came a visionary capable of seeing clearly past the here and now into the possible.  Dr. Martin Luther King believed that only nonviolence can achieve honorable, real and permanent change, as did his mentor Gandhi.  I suppose to some it felt and even now can feel absurd to suggest peace when children are being shot down by militarized cops and idiots like Rudy Giuliani, still clinging to the forlorn hope of living in the White House, persist in playing race against race, cop against civilian, Obama against everybody.  

Nonetheless, Dr. King and Gandhi were unequivocally right.  I say this even now as we watch the dream of the former rolled backward by a politicized Supreme Court and rabid, racist statehouses all over the country.  By way of demonstration I suggest reflection upon the fact that had anyone told the greatest colonial power in history in the middle of the 19^th Century that her Empire in India would be brought to its knees by a robe-draped, Hindu scholar with poor eyesight, mighty England would have laughed in their face.  Still in all, that is exactly what happened.

On the other hand, even in the warm light of love the cold shadow of violence lingers; and the oppressed have risen up with rocks, spears, arrows, knives and guns throughout history when they have had enough.  From the sacking of the Roman Empire by the Visigoths to the American, French and Russian Revolutions rage has driven the victims of tyranny to war. 

Today we see the modernization of Roman brutality; of the divine right and entitlement to exploit held sacred by the many British monarchs; of the opulent decadence enjoyed at the expense of the people by the French Kings, and of the profound indifference to the suffering of generations under the Czars of Russia.  One can’t help but see the buffoon Nero, who preferred performing in the theater to the business of state, in Rudy Giuliani posturing in the press; King George III in Jami Dimon’s insistence that the United States Congress be at his beck and call; Louie XVI’s self-indulgence in Wall Street and Czar Nichols’ dearth of care and compassion in Congress. 

To me it seems obvious that on the other side of the intense apathy seen in the electorate this past November a mounting fury – growing in the streets as of this writing – will inevitably explode when the American people who failed to participate in the last election realize just what they have let themselves and the rest of us in for with a Republican House and Senate elected by default.  The thoughtless unresponsiveness of many to the requirements of citizenship in a free country is, to my way of thinking, as responsible for the rise of government by the minority and by money as are Citizens United, Scalia and the conceited harlots in Congress. A recent study at Princeton and Northeastern Universities would seem to confirm what many of us has long feared. This great democratic republic has deteriorated into a fulminating oligarchy, and we have no one but ourselves to blame in many ways.   Accordingly, oligarchies lead to tyranny which is followed by revolution as surely as night follows day. 

As Lord Byron said, "History, with all her volumes vast, hath but one page."  That page is often written in blood.  The only safeguard against revolutionary bloodshed in this country is the franchise. It must be protected, secured and defended on behalf of all the American people.  Anyone who isn't prepared to do that is not fit to serve in any area of government - on the bench, in the executive or legislative field.  Anyone who is to indolent to vote, even when their very freedom is threatened, deserves neither the safeguard of the franchise nor the dignity of freedom.

It is no longer possible to ignore the monster under the bed or the perpetual children who prefer to sleep therein.  Greed and apathy do not a civil society make.  Complacency is a velvet cage - softly enfolding those it imprisons as surely as steel bars.  We can't all be activists, but we must all participate.  We can't all be firebrands, but we must all be alert.  It is time to stand up, speak out, hold ourselves upright and defiant before words and peaceful action are no longer enough and out of desperation and wrath we shred our humanity and rip ourselves apart.

Time to Stand Up

I have been watching Conservatives bleat about their wave and mandate since the November election. The media has been patting itself on the back for predicting this wave. What wave, I ask? Only 36.6% of the electorate turned up to vote, according to Time Magazine. The lowest turn out in 72, I say 72, years. Hitler was Chancellor of Germany the last time the electorate fell asleep at the switch in such a glaring display of apathy. 

A new study by Princeton and Northwestern Universities has pronounced our great experiment, our democratic republic, a bloody oligarchy. Question: What is the relationship between apathy and oligarchy? If people believe money is more important and powerful then they are, do they not stay home? When in point of fact an angry electorate storming the polls makes a mockery out of any amount of money. I give you 2012 when the billionaire class lost millions trying to defeat Obama. 

Set aside the overweening gluttony for power of bastards like Scalia and Mitch McConnell who brought the original lawsuit that resulted in Citizens United. Set aside the sheeple who vote against their own economic interests because the object of their loyalty uses the name of Christ like a bargaining chip. I believe this country is center-left. I believe there are enough of us to put the common good front and center once again. I believe it is time for a nonviolent, revolution at the polls. Question: How do we achieve that?

New Year’s Resolution, 2015

It is time that we stopped looking to moral invalids for moral rectitude.  It is time that we realized that most of the people elected to office in this country are nothing more than swaggering harlots – peddling influence to the rich and Christ to the gullible.  It is time that we understood that the decline of our society is directly proportional to the swelling of religion in our body politic - owing to the rise of false prophets.  It is time we began to think.  

A Message from the Masses

IF THE BUDGET BILL PASSES, I think it is time to tell those monsters in Congress what we think of them. Let us send them, individually or as a body, a red light bulb to hang over their door with a note stating that the light is not a Christmas decorations, but a way for Wall Street and other Johns to identify them in the dark. 

Definitions

Dick Cheney says that the ends justify the means.  That is what Caligula said; what Hitler said; what Stalin said.  Indeed it is what all tyrants have said.  It works for them because it sets them above the law they pretend to serve, and/or the God they pretend to love. 

The mentality of a man such as Cheney spreads through a culture like plague.  This is particularly true when it is sent forth into the Gestalt via the bullhorn of televised media and then regurgitated in the brothel of what was once the United States Congress.   

Bit by bit the malevolent symptoms of the plague including, but not limited to, cruelty, violence, abuse and revenge become acceptable.  Thus it should surprise no one when a society that will engage in torture will not recoil from killing its own people – especially the vulnerable. 

A word, however, to those who think they are safe.  Should the definition of scapegoat expand in the blink of an eye – as is the arbitrary and capricious nature of such things – from skin color to eye color, hair color or shoe size; well, good luck with all that.

Hopeless

The budget bill that has been passed on to the stooges in the Senate by the hoes in the House has a number of noxious provisions that are contraindicated to the fiscal and sociopolitical health of the American people.  One which sent me into a rage last night goes something like this: the least productive, least effective, least responsive group of parasites in this country today – that would be the 113^th Congress – has taken it as their privilege to legislate a cut in the private retirement benefits of millions of people who worked hard every day of their life.  Rather than saying that what they are doing is serving the likes of UPS and others with whom they have a relationship closely resembling that of a high priced hooker to a regular John, they persist in telling the country that they are saving the retirement fund of all those workers.  Yes indeed, these creatures are always saving something.  They are in fact saviors like the God whose teachings they have bastardized and whose memory they have peddled by the ounce for votes and campaign money.  

Let us not forget that this legalized theft is largely the work product of the cynical, money grubbing, false prophets that have been handed this country on a silver platter by 36% of the electorate while most of the rest stayed home.  This is the lowest turnout in over 70 years.  Can you beat that for stupid?  

When I was finally able to think about sleep around 3 a.m., I lay down with a crushing headache.  Anyone who suffers from hypertension knows what I am talking about.  I was taught to call it a pressure headache.  Unable to raise my head off the pillow or even close my eyes for some time, I began to think about what it is that anyone owes such a nation.  How much can be done for people who would stand in the full light of day and cut their own throats with malice of forethought?

I am a Pagan.  I don’t view the concept of sacrifice in the same way as a Christian.  To me to sacrifice is to sanctify or make sacred in the eyes of the Goddess.  Pissing away one’s time, happiness and health in the service of people too thick or foolish to sever themselves is, therefore, sacrilege.  This is a hard saying, I suppose.  Nonetheless, it is how I have come to feel.  

In point of fact, I have never felt as disillusioned and disheartened save when Bobby Kennedy was shot to death; died for our sins if you will.  For twenty-six hours from the instant of his mortal wounding until the moment he breathed his last, time seemed to stand still.  When the tick-tick-tick of the seconds began again just after 10 a.m. MST something was missing, gone, never to return.  For me it was a brightly colored thread in the rich tapestry of hope, a belief in the goodness of the world.  I was seventeen.

Tonight I am sixty five, Bobby is gone near fifty years, and my hope has worn through.  The men and women who will be impacted by this legislative emesis of a budget bill will find themselves hurting.  All retirees will have yet more evidence that pensions and earned benefits may be lost in the darkness of the next two years as politicians insulated from their electorate by money sell their soul to the devil.  To those who voted for these Republican scoundrels I say, you reap what you sow.  To those who didn't vote at all I say, you reap what you didn't sow.  To everyone else, in the words of the great Bette Davis, incomparable star and committed Liberal, “fasten your seatbelts it is going to be a bumpy night.”

The Gift

I have a suggestion for my Christian brothers and sister.  Owing to the fact that Religious Fundamentalists have been misrepresenting your faith since the poster child for God-bothering frauds, Ronald Reagan, was in the Oval Office you might want to start setting the record straight by telling Nicole Wallace to shut the fuck up because the God she is thanking for torture might be anyone of a number of Gods but certainly isn't the peace loving man from Nazareth.  With His agreed upon birthday looming on the horizon that might be a wonderful gift to give Him.  After all, people like the bargain basement Barbie, Wallace, and her partner in slime, Joe “Whatever Happened to My Young Intern” Scarborough, will be taking over the government in January and promise to do even more damage to your Christian Creed in the name of power, wealth and control.    

I Would Rather Be Gardening

My friend, who possesses a greatness of mind that is consistent with the talent and perspicacity of a fine therapist, shared a profound expression a day or so ago at lunch when she said, “Not my circus; not my monkeys.”  This is a difficult principle for someone like me.  The oldest child of a dysfunction and alcoholic family I have long assumed responsibility for everybody’s everything.  A committed Liberal who has suddenly discovered that there is no place for me in my own country – the Democrats being useless pawns to their own cowardice and the Republicans stoking a maniacal rage against people like me based upon lies and fear for fun and profit – I am rapidly and with not a little guilt losing interest in the plight of my fellow citizens.

On November 4, 2014, the American people gave the worst element in this country permission to do their worst, and they are doing it.  From puffed up network executives of little taste, less intellect and no social conscience expecting the President of the United States to come hat-in-hand begging for air time to deliver a major policy speech during some bullshit called Sweeps Week and all the way into the halls of Congress where the architects of an unprecedented operation of sabotage against a sitting president, Boehner and McConnell, squat with their fists full of campaign graft and their mouths full of threats.  

I have said before and will say again, we the people through our apathy, indifference, ignorance and infantile moral paralysis have codified government by the radical, racist, rabid minority.  To my Liberal friends I say now, we need a Liberal Party.  To all the lazy bastards who didn't vote because they believe that the outcome has nothing to do with them I say, good luck with all that.  For my part, I am working on finding a new way of life.  Sixty-five years young and growing up at last. I am learning to say, it ain’t my fucking circus; they aren't my monkeys. 

Letter of Disgust

Letter sent to Senator Michael Bennett, Junior Senator from Colorado and Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 2014

I have no faith that you will read this letter, or if you do that you will take much notice.  Still, I feel compelled to write to you as the man who was responsible for leading the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. 

This past midterm election was one of the most disturbing political spectacles that I have ever witnessed.  I am sixty-five years old, sir.  I am an old Kennedy Liberal – not a Progressive, not a watered-down Clinton New Democrat, but a Liberal.  It is beyond my comprehension that a Democratic President can be hounded, slandered, obstructed and abused into near ruin while the media stands mute – only to have his own party betray him near the end of his tenure.  It is further beyond my comprehension that a mere third of the electorate cast ballots in the midterm down from 40.9% in 2010.  Voter suppression aside there is a whole lot of apathy in this country – largely in your party I fear.  In any case we have codified government by the radical, raging, racist minority.  Well done America.

I say “your party” because there is no place for Liberals in the Democratic Party, or so many of us are coming to believe.  Indeed there seems to be but one party in this country, the Corporatists’ Party; the Republicans on the Right and the Democrats in the Center lurching right. The Left has been driven into the wilderness like Azazel’s goat.  This might be less objectionable if the American people weren’t solidly behind Liberal ideas.  To wit: the minimum wage, paycheck equity, addressing income disparity, Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, marriage equity, gun control and reproductive freedom.  It begs the question, what does your party – without the Liberals – stand for besides pandering to special interests and trying to look as much like the Right as possible? 

While the Republicans are running around celebrating their victory, squealing about a mandate, neither the Democratic Party nor much of what is laughingly referred to as the Free Press has mentioned the fact that only 36.4% of the electorate voted in this past election.  That, according to Charlotte Alter of Time Magazine, is a 72 year low.  There is no damn mandate here.  It was barely an election.  They didn't win; you lost.  The American people lost, and why?  Could it be because the Democrats have lost their guts?  Could it be because they didn’t even have the courage to run on this president’s accomplishments or their own for that matter?  Could it be because they didn't have the stones to call out McConnell and his obstructionists for making sure that the recovery reached as few people as possible; for corrupting and misrepresenting Mr. Obama’s ideas and intentions?

Clearly, between the unchallenged lies and negativity, the distortions, the resounding grief and anguish that are the residue of the Bush years the American people have given up, given in and given over to the very politicians who have stalled the government and the economic recovery.  They have stepped away from the franchise in ever increasing numbers.  Between the media personalities like Chris Matthews who bang on about their predictions as if elections are won before the campaigns begin and the overriding sense out here that our government is bought and paid for with no interest in or accountability to the people, so many Americans have given up on the process.  Others of course are just plain lazy. 

I have always voted and always will.  My grandparents came to this country at the turn of the last century.  They were poor and hungry like so many who have come to this land hoping for a better life.  The truth is, Senator, the belief in that better life is a situation of diminishing return.  Jesus may save; but cash is God.  The American Dream is a pay to play game, and most people can’t afford the entrance fees.  It is easy to believe that one’s voice will not be heard over the self righteous bellowing of the predatory Capitalism that has taken control of our politics and is eroding our institutions.  In honor of my grandparents, who celebrated the right to cast a ballot, I will always vote.  I don’t kid myself into believing that I have any more faith in this deteriorating system than anyone else.

You are my Senator, Mr. Bennett.  I have always liked you.  I liked Udall too.  Still, I have to say that I would rather vote for and be represented by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.  I know where they stand, and I share their values.  In terms of policy I have never been a stalwart supporter of President Obama’s.  Why would I be?  I am so far to the Left that I am not even in his peripheral vision.  Having said all of that, he deserved better from his bloody party then to be hung out to dry in a revolting, and ineffectually  transparent as it proved, attempt at self promotion.  He deserves better from a Fourth Estate that appears to be in the process of selling its soul to the devil.   He certainly deserves better from this ungrateful nation of selfish, sniveling children who elected him twice then stood quietly by while he was ripped to shreds by every hypocrite and charlatan with access to a microphone.

Let Us Be Clear

Let us be clear.  According to the Associated Press as reported by NPR on 11/5, only 36.6% of the electorate voted on Tuesday.*  Mandate? This isn't a mandate, it is hardly an election.  About 3.1 million people turned out in a nation of over 7 million registered voters.  Even in states where turnout was higher than usual, it was pathetic in scope.  This was many things, a temper tantrum, an exercise in apathetic self righteousness, a very stupid move, but it was no mandate.

Every person who could vote but didn't, handed this country over to the most obstructionist, dangerous, derelict bunch of self promoting fanatics seen to step foot in public office in modern times.  The no show voters cast their ballot in absentium for government by racist minority; government by corporation; government by organized religion; government by scapegoating, slander and duplicity.

Once again this was no mandate.  It was an extremely careless, idiotic thing to do and one from which this country will suffer mightily for at least the next two years and probably longer.  So believe in Santa, imaginary playmates or the Easter Bunny; but don't believe - no matter who or what “expert” tells you - in mandates born of a myopic and self indulgent electorate.

*Source material

Midterm Elections May Have Had Record Low Turnout

One in the Win Column

Bada Bing Bada Boom

This was a nail bitter. The Democrats had better stopped impersonating Republicans, read a biography of Roosevelt - that would be Franklin Delano - and stop playing nice with every Rightwing nutbag who calls them names. Gardner didn't win; Udall lost. We need to study the turn-out. We need to understand why running a one note campaign, no matter how sweet the note, is a symphony for disaster.

Obama needs to move on Immigration. If the Right threatens to Impeach him, well bring it you morons. It served you well last time. Not to mention the fact that the Left will make your name mud in every Hispanic household for a generation to come.

The days of blaming Obama ended last night.  This president has a rare opportunity to show these vile monsters up for what they are, so bring it Mr. Cruz.

Let us shove their wave up their ass and call it an enema.

Hickenlooper defeats Beauprez for Colorado governor

Hell of a Night

Chuck Todd, that blithering twit masquerading as a reporter, has just determined that the Democratic loss is merely the fault of the President and Harry Reid.  It takes some real stones to stand up on a stage as Mitch McConnell did tonight and blame Obama for the gridlock that he, McConnell, orchestrated with obstruction and obstruction and more obstruction through a record number of filibusters and all manner of unethical behavior.  It takes even larger stones to pat that same McConnell on the back for being gracious in his acceptance speech as Chris "the Mouth" Matthews did earlier.  Even larger stones are required to blame the most maligned, undermined and deliberately sabotaged president in history - with the collusion of people like Todd I might add - for tanking an election riddled with weak, unintelligent and frightened politicians many of whom will report to the Emergency Room this night for treatment of leg strain from straddling fences throughout the campaign.  

Don't get me wrong, I am no apologist for this president. In point of fact, I have had serious problems with the Democrats for some years now - ever since Clinton turned Deep Purple bleeding Red. I am no longer a member of the party. Why? Simply because Democrats no longer know what it is to be a Democrat; never mind Liberal - hell they can't spell the damn word which is why many of them call themselves Progressives. Harry Reid is a perfect example. He could have put a stop to McConnell and his rule by filibuster, but no. He went half way to goal post, then took the Republican leader by the dick and skipped across the goal line singing Kumbaya.

In my estimation, tonight they paid the penalty. Given the opportunity to vote for Democrats leaning toward Republicanism, the people voted for the real Republicans. Well put me on stilts and call me stretch, my surprise is underwhelming.

Now let us live with the mess we have made and the monsters we have created.

Nothing New Under the Sun

"... Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor or the unfortunate. ..."

If you think that this is a modern day quote, you would be mistaken.  It is part of the opening lines of the 1943 version of "Jane Eyre,” starring Joan Fontaine and the great Orson Wells. These words were crafted by writer Aldous Huxley's in his brilliant condensation of the sense and meaning of Ms. Bronte's novel for the screen. 

Charlotte Bronte was deeply critical of her society; of the abuse and mistreatment of women and children; of the exploitation and scapegoating of the poor; of the religious hypocrisy and veneration of wealth that fell out from all of the above.  As we sit today waiting to see if more of our faux aristocracy, money changers and corrupt politicians will control our Congress while retaining old and winning new governorships, it is worth noting that this moral decline isn't new.  It comes to pass every so many years in every century.  The same blind followers buy into it, supporting it even when it is against their own interests.  The same windmill-tilting idealists speak out against it and are called ungodly, unpatriotic, insane and even criminal – all in an effort to make them sit down and shut up.  As it is now it ever has been, and I pray Goddess it won't always be.  Still the more I read and learn the less respect I have for my fellow humans, the more convinced I am that it is all we deserve.  I live in the hope of being proven wrong.

Take A Breath

Nurse Hickox is not a public health risk.  She is not symptomatic, and even if she were one would have to be in contact with her bodily fluids and/or Goddess forbid her corpse to be cross contaminated.  Before we jail her, slip her the spike or sentence her to life without parole, let us remember Mr. Duncan’s family.  His family was in very close contact with him in a small apartment while he was seriously symptomatic.  None of them contracted the disease.  It is worth remembering that two patients does not an epidemic make.  The two Americans who did contract the disease here are out of the hospital, Ebola free and doing fine.  Now, I don’t want to interrupt our national orgy of paranoia, our fearathon extraordinaire with the scientific facts.  Nonetheless, those are the goddamned facts.

Having said all of this there are some public health risks aboard in the land.  One of those risks would be members of the press, if you must call them that, with their hair on fire refusing to believe in the science because a bunch of politicians running for something have called that discipline into question.  Another would be the politicians themselves. For instance, Chris Christie who is running for president in 2016 on Ebola today – at his weight perhaps vice president as well; Andrew Como who is running for savior every hour on every channel but is too fastidious and well dress to display the stigmata; Paul LaPage 21^st Century poster child for the anencephalic in public office and running for king of Toontown.  Leave us not forget the manufacturers of junk science – former physicians who are currently hiding in Congress where they can do little and make a lot instead of working their asses off like real docs.  Some of these chumps don’t appear to have read a medical journal since Jenner and Pasteur discovered the smallpox vaccine. 

So take a breath.  The nurse won’t give you Ebola.  Hordes of ISIL members aren’t crossing the borders to infect us with the dread disease.  Given the shit we believe and the idiots we believe, why would they bother?  We will destroy ourselves soon enough.    

Hubris Meets Courage

It is about time that people began to fight these bulling, lying, self promoting - at the expense of the American people - politicians with the one thing they value, money.  Como and Christie are not doctors.  They have no business opining on or deciding the course of disease management in this country.

When I was in D.C. on 9/11 I saw three things.  Firefighters and cops running toward the Pentagon; private citizens moving in a calm, courteous and orderly way toward the Metro and out of the district; our so called leaders running like rats for a hole to hide in.  We have become a nation of frightened children governed by a lot of opportunistic thugs who would expose their mother to Ebola if it would give them a percentage point in their next election.

I have said before and will say again, the only people to contract Ebola on our shores were victims of the negligence of a for corporate owned hsopital that failed to do its due diligence or its job in training its personnel, providing the necessary gear and offering the proper waste management.  For the record we have known how to manage the waste of isolation cases since the invention of the autoclave in 1879.

Neither our sniveling media nor our swaggering pols will take on corporate medicine. Obama can appoint all the Czars, Kings, Queens, Emperors or Bleep Bleeps he likes. No bloody bureaucrat will solve the problem of Ebola. That will be done in West Africa by the medical people with the courage to go fight it; for they have more guts, heart, brains and humanity in one hand then all our bloody politicians stirred together in a bowl.

Chris Christie: Quarantined Nurse To Be Released

Really?

Bang, bang we shoot them down; bang, bang they hit the ground; bang, bang we shoot our children down.  This is our new national anthem.  We have rewritten our Constitution in blood for the love of money.  Vile, corrupt, lying politicians owned by greedy, cynical lobbyists and gun manufactures are running this country’s future into the grave.  They have whipped the ignorant up into a frenzy of brutal rage and murderous fear by invoking the name of the Prince of Peace.  The media sits in the front pew and mirrors their empty righteousness back at them while shedding crocodile tears in front of the bereaved for the sake of the dead.  We the people, those who vote and those who don’t, are worried about the enemy from without; really?  

Terrorism

Terrorism has always been with us.  It is older than antiquity and is a physical manifestation of hate.  It was not born on 9/11.  It is not the child of Islam.  Indeed terrorism is not synonymous with any faith, but it is the kindred spirit of fear and loathing and the cynicism that would use them for gain.  As long as we continue to offer violence as the best way to the highest good; as long as we continue to practice war and refuse to see it for what it is, organized terrorism with flags, it will flourish.  It feeds on the blood of the fallen and survives with the grief of the vanquished.  Terrorism is a self fulfilling prophecy.  

Definition of Cynicism

Definition of cynicism: the stirring up of fear and panic over a situation that requires neither for political and partisan gain; followed by hearings held largely to point fingers at political adversaries and to accuse agencies whose funding has been severely cut, even withheld, of negligent or criminal wrong doing.   This is what is known as a cluster-fuck or 21^st Century Republican Politics.  

Unsubscribing from the Denver Post

To all my sisters and brothers here in Colorado, The Denver Post has taken it upon itself to endorse Cory Gardner for Senate.  This is less unexpected than it is distasteful.  The Post has always leaned Right, but what is really obnoxious about this choice is that the people who have made it appear be taking this Bible thumping zealot at his word with regard to changing his mind on the issue of personhood - disallowing most commonly used forms of birth control and no abortion even in cases of rape and incest.  It is no secret that even as the rag went to press Gardner has legislation before the House that amounts to personhood.  It is easy enough for him to say now that he has changed his mind. However, 5 will get you 10 that if elected to the Senate this low rent demagogue will return to the lame duck session and put said legislation through. Particularly, if the Right holds a Senate majority.  

I don't give the media many points for brain power, so one could make the case that they are just stupid or naive.  In the final analysis it won't matter a damn.  The bottom line is that there is no percentage for women in having this creep in the Senate.  I'm suggesting that it is worth a protest, that is to say a group cancelling of subscriptions to remind the The Denver Post that they don't have much to lose here, but the women of the State of Colorado have a great deal at stake. 

Finally, I don't subscribe to mainstream publications, but for those who do I submit that there are many places to get information.  It is my opinion, in point of fact, that the farther away from corporate media one gets the better the information.

Autumn in the High Country

Autumn chases Dawn into the light every morning now.  The breeze picks up her feet and dances windy as the Sun sets, splashing September’s gold, crimson and indigo spray from the pool of the Western sky.  The Mighty Rockies breathe the scent of pine and early changing Aspen down over the Prairie.  I imagine I smell the crisp clean chill that is the prelude to Winter drifting from the great red-stone canyon that lines the beautiful Boulder Creek running wild with the blood of the Goddess.  How insignificant we are in the face of such grandeur.  Our schemes and plots are trivial when set beside the glory of the smallest flower.  Daily my home reminds me that we are as the least speck of dust in the eye of the Great Mother who created my Colorado, and if there is a place more beautiful I have never seen it on this side of dreaming or the other.

The Potentate of Puffery

This morning I tuned into Joe Scarborough’s program as I was waiting for it to get light enough outside to commence feeding my rose for the last time this season.  The usual suspects were clustered around the table, pretending to be relevant and wanting desperately to be part of the news rather than just comment.  Scarborough was cutting them off right and left as usual, seeming to insist that his opinions are actually facts. 

I am sure most people remember Scarborough’s tenure as the Congressman from Florida’s 1^st Congressional District from 1994 to 2001.  As near as I could tell he did little save thump the Bible, serve the “right” people, defend fetuses, question the need to feed poor children, and follow the silhouette of Clinton’s penis through a $42,000,000 panty raid.  Yes, Clinton and his intern offended and obsessed the mighty white and righteous, family values Scarborough until his own assistant turned up dead in his Florida office on a summer day in 2001.  The death was ruled accidental – head trauma sustained during a fall.  She was said to have been alone and fainted.  He resigned the same year, and was so affected by the tragedy that he and Don Imus joked about it on air in 2003.  Well, so much for interns and assistants alive or dead.

The incident is never spoken of; certainly not on sorta-kinda-left-leaning MSNBC where at least one Liberal voice has been silenced, that of Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos, for daring to flout the taboo.   Indeed, the network has ensconced Morning Joe like a bloated potentate on a downy throne of hubris where he pontificates Monday thru Friday.  Today was no different as he held court surround by his head nodding, always agreeing supplicants.  He led a chorus of critics opining against Obama’s foreign policy, his domestic policy, the color of his tie, the sound of his voice, the cut of his jib and on and on.  Look, I am no cheerleader for the president, many of his policies make my skin crawl; but goddamn it nobody is wrong all of the time. 

I have ask before and I will ask again, can the disinclination of our friends and allies to support us in Iraq against these maniacs driving people onto a mountain top to starve not be in some small way related to the fact that President Obama may have been reduced in the eyes of the world to a paralyzed and near impotent figurehead by a feckless, corporate shilling, yellow journalism loving media and a power hungry, resentful and in many cases well past its sell by date Rightwing Congress?  Can we be so stupid as to not connect the nearly continual and malignant verbal emesis, slander and personality assignation of the Scarboroughs, McCains, Grahams, Palins, Bachmans, McConnells, Boehners, Limbaughs and so many more to the reticence of our friends and the emboldened applause of our enemies?

Has he made mistakes?  Oh yes many, and some in my mind profoundly damaging.  However, I will say that the first president I remember was Dwight David Eisenhower.  I come from a solid, hardcore Liberal, Working Class background.  My parents were both FDR Democrats and union organizers.  I was a Fabian Socialist in my youth.  I am a committed Democratic Socialist today.  Because I have always worked for a living and aligned myself with the Working Class, I have devoutly believed that I couldn't be a Republican because I carried a lunchbox and certainly couldn't afford to be ignorant.  Accordingly, I have studied the body politic closely for nearly half a century and state without equivocation that I have never seen one man blamed for so much by so many with so little evidence.  I have never seen one person asked to unilaterally shoulder the psychic Shadow of a nation or the responsibility for the broken faith, fraud and malfeasance of generations of overpaid, over empowered, parasitic political hacks. 

No one person is responsible for the deepening mess this country faces every day.  No one person is responsible for the bloodbaths, the famines, the terror, the disease and the sorrow of this world.  It is time to start holding everyone accountable for their part.  It isn't good enough to just say Obama did it anymore.

Know Your Limits Politicians

I am a bit disturbed about politicians who presume to practice medicine. Not long ago the five Ambulance Chasers for Jesus on the Supreme Court took it upon themselves to redefine conception, implantation, contraception and abortion. Now, we have members of the political class bantering about whether or not to fast track drugs for the treatment of Ebola.

It is my considered opinion after 35 years working in the medical world and 65 years on this planet that such decisions belong in the hands of the CDC, the World Health Organization, the highly ethical and selfless doctors who serve in the field where these diseases present themselves, and above all in the hands of the patients who are facing death without said drugs.

Politicians need to stick to doing what they do best - peddling influence.

Myths and Morons

I think the Ebola virus is being used to divert attention from Palestine and our humanitarian crisis at the border?  Let’s be clear.  Ebola isn't something you want to take out for a spin, but in this country we practice Universal Precautions which are defined as: an approach to infection control [that] treats all human blood and certain human body fluids as if they were known to be infectious … , (Bloodborne Pathogens Standard 29 CFR 1910.1030(b) definitions).  

In addition, we practice aseptic technique which among other things means gloving, gowning, establishing sterile fields and in this case maintaining strict isolation.  Further, this virus isn't airborne which means you can’t catch it from the guy sitting next to in the bar, and it doesn't have a silent incubation period.  You have to be sick to pass it on.  All of this means that it is highly, highly I say, unlikely that Ebola will take up residence in this country the way it has in Africa where Universal Precautions and Aseptic Technique aren't routinely observed.

So, the next time some media hump starts going on and on about the potential spread of the virus by the people coming home for treatment, or a Bachmann starts running off at the mouth about the kids at the boarder possibly bringing it in, understand that you are being diverted, man; you are being played.  

If you want to get upset about something consider the fact that people speak with alarming acceptance and implied approval about the Free Market Capitalist predators in the Pharmaceutical Industry who have never developed nor are they likely to start developing a vaccine for Ebola.  The reason, no incentive; what is the only incentive for these people – money.  Now I realize that I am an old battle scared Socialist who tends not to view the obsessive acquisition of money in a favorable light, but really?  

Trash Talk

I am not an Obama apologist.  I carry water for no politician.  Indeed with damn few exceptions I can scarcely stand the sight of the lying humps.  From the early days of Mr. Obama’s administration I began questioning his policies.  Starting with the healthcare debate, running through Chained CPI, the drone strikes, TPP, the Keystone XL Pipeline, offshore drilling and our unrelenting and mule-headed position that no matter what Israel does or how she does it she is only defending herself in the most righteous of causes. 

I have lost friends, then and since, because I refused to cease and desist in my dissent with regard to many of his policies – to keep my mouth shut and follow where led.  I submit that dissent is as necessary for the health of this Republic and its people as clean air.  Further that it is the oldest and noblest of our patriotic traditions.  I reserve the right to dissent loudly and often whenever and wherever I see fit – the cops in Chicago in '68 didn’t shut me up and peer pressure from the Left won’t either.  I am an old woman who speaks her mind, and when old women speak their mind the tribe does well to listen.

I don’t stand alone, but with many who oppose much of this president’s agenda.  We are Liberals – not Progressives, Moderates, Centrist, Clintonites, Hillary’s Women, or Obama’s army – but Liberals.  We hold to a strict code of social and economic justice.  We do not practice war, and certainly not wars of convenience.  We shutter at unbridled Capitalism, the excesses of the Free Market and corporatism.  We honor people over profit, the planet over greed; and we do not define freedom and liberty in terms of religious opportunism.  That is to say that Christians, Jews, Pagans, Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, none of the above and people who just don’t think about it own equally this nations promise of freedom and have every right to express their liberty in the interests of their own happiness.  No platform, party or person is more deserving of our loyalty than the cause.  We are the Liberals, but not the enemy.

That distinction belongs to the far Right side of the political spectrum, their parasites, sycophants and pretenders to the throne.  When John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Steve King, Louie Gohmert, John Boehner and others start trash talking over the airways about President Obama’s policies they are not proffering disagreement, opposition, or even dissent.  They are in the process of destroying a man they hate.  They have materially weakened the fabric of this nation, eroded the structure of this Republic and compromised our standing in the world with their unending and obscene display of hubris and contempt for the President of the United States.  This is not politics or the spectacle of government.  No, this is the deliberate, systematic, orchestrated and premeditated annihilation of the man’s presidency, his character and his legacy.  Since we the people elected this man twice by clear majority their hatred, hubris and contempt cannot help but rebound on us. 

I believe that we have been made to appear weak in the eyes of our enemies not because Obama is weak – he isn’t weak.  I don’t like a lot of what he does, but he isn't weak.  Our perceived weakness rests in the fact that our enemies know that these resentful old men and the women who follow them about regurgitating their venom would side with the enemies of this nation before they would be seen to support President Barack Obama.  If that doesn't frighten you in the world we live in then you must have nerves of steel, a large liquor supply or be incredibly uninformed.

Mama Ain't Happy

The First Amendment has been twisted, contorted, tortured and misrepresented so as to make it possible for corporations to buy our political system, gun nuts to surround unarmed women in coffee shops and people with a mouth full of vitriol and a mind full of hate to jump around like hyenas on crack shouting at and threatening small children crossing our borders.  Anyone who opposes this distortion of our values, this self serving, childish and idiotic agenda is called anything from Un-American to evil and many times offered violence by way of demonstrating that equality is a thing of the past in this great Republic of ours. 

It is understood that along with equality, sanity has been lost in the great desire to homogenize, Christianize, propagandize and sterilize the American landscape as with cruelty and stupidity we pickup our social order and return to the beginning of the last century when men were white, their women and children were property and everyone else was disposable.  The vanguard of evolutionary regression sweeping this country and back peddling through over half a century of civil rights legislation is a quintet of old men in long black robes safely ensconced behind a 252-foot buffer zone in Washington D.C.  A handful of elitists with more power than they are able to use judiciously do not a recipe for liberty make, not for workers, not for voters and certainly not for women.

Many egregious things have come out of the Scalia Court; the asinine notion that Roberts is running it is to my way of thinking one of the most insulting.  The ventriloquist and his dummy notwithstanding, the assertion that freedom of religion can be used in a secular state to displace the rights of half the population is beyond insulting and borders on a Jack-the-Ripper-Ted-Bundy kind of pathological misogyny.   Still, this is not just a woman’s issue.  Any man who is married to a woman in childbearing years and works for a “closely held,” deeply religious employer trying to use God to shave a few pennies off their group insurance plan best not count on his dick to guarantee that his wife can access contraception through his policy. 

The idea that any of this is about freedom of religion is a hoot in the first place.  It is about freedom for one religion – Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy’s religion.  This is not about God or loving God or following Christ.  It is about establishing a state sponsored morality and belief system ordained by a cabal of puffed up mouthpieces who far and away resemble the priests of the Inquisition more than ever they resemble the loving Christ they claim to follow so bloody devoutly.  They are in effect through law, the old whore, reordering the nature of the human species.  At the top of the food chain is the corporate person followed by the rich person with the rest of us falling somewhere below – women generally near the bottom.

The corporate person does not breathe air, it breathes money.  Living on the Free Market the way other people live in their houses and communities, the corporate person is chained to its bottom line the way we are anchored to our atmosphere.  This is Corporate Person’s Achilles Heel.  This is where women need to strike.  Organized boycotts on a very large scale with millions of women participating would be our best weapon of choice.  There can be no question that corporations like Hobby Lobby rely upon the consumerism of women.  Indeed around 80% of all consumer dollars are spent by women.  This is real power.  To that end I am joining other women in the process of putting together a project that would facilitate the use of our power.  We have agreed upon the name, “Mama Ain't Happy” for our organization. 

Now I am anticipating the old canard that women are so often exposed to when taking up a cause for their own benefit.  This would be the big picture argument.  You know the one.  It goes something like this, “There, there dear while I understand your concerns you must look at the big picture.  Large scale boycotts – if a group of women could even achieve such a thing, doubtful – could be very harmful to the economy.  Jobs, people need jobs.  I understand that this wasn't fair, but hey.”  

Most of you know that I lack tact for the most part, particularly when I am annoyed.  The big picture argument annoys me at the best of times.  I have been very clear in the past with my answer to this particular line of bullshit.  As always I will be happy to suggest that anyone who cares to make such an argument can take their big picture and insert it in whatever orifice it will fit with a whole lot of KY Jelly and a big “good luck with all that,” because Mama ain't happy and with any luck that will mean that somebody ain't gonna make no money no how.