What's It To Ya?--Prop 8

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I had written anything! For a long time, I didn't think it was worth the effort, but lately, I've been feeling the urge again, so here I am. There is so much going on, and I feel the need to comment on some of them.

I was shocked when Prop 8 passed--imagine, the people of California (of all places!) voted to strip a portion of its citizens of their rights as Americans and to subject them to the worst kinds of abuses a civil system can inflict on its people. How did such a travesty happen? Because certain groups of haters (the Mormon and Catholic churches, primarily) using some pretty despicable tactics, managed to convince Californians that gay people were involved in some vast conspiracy to harm our children and to destroy our way of life and that having the right to be legally married was only the first step in this conspiracy.

The fact that Prop 8 passed shows that we haven't come as far from the Jim Crowe laws against the blacks in the South as we would like to believe. We are still as susceptible to acting on our ignorance and fear as we have ever been, and those who use that ignorance and fear to further their own hater aims have only gotten slicker and richer (the amount of money laid out by the Mormon church alone is obscene). Personally, I think it is a good thing to get this kind of crap out in the open. After all, shining a bright light into the deep, dark corners of our collective psyche is the best way to begin clearing out all the shadows that hide there. Because of Prop 8, people are starting to ask questions of themselves and of our society as a whole, and to see it for what it was--a slippery slope. If you can vote to strip one group of people of their inherent rights as Americans and as human beings, who is next, and where does it stop?

The haters claim that gays are a threat and that allowing them to get married will lead to destruction. My question is, HOW? It's a simple enough question, but I have yet to get anything close to an adequate answer. The only answers I get are quotes from Scripture and appeals to my baser nature. My response to that is this: if you call yourself a Christian but use the Old Testament to back your arguments, you have bigger things to sort out than worrying about who's marrying who. I've said this before, but I feel compelled to say it again: The Old Testament was given to the JEWS and anyone who subscribes to that set of scribblings IS A JEW. It makes as much sense as a Muslim using the Talmud instead of the Koran. So you need to get your basics right before you try to tackle anything more advanced. And to all of those who ask themselves WWJD? I can tell you he'd probably quote John 8:7 (You know, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.)

Second, using emotional appeals to win rational arguments (and anything as serious as a constitutional amendment can't be handled another way than rationally), is like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Using deceit and scare-tactics instead of proving your point with facts and evidence only shows the weakness of your position and makes me suspicious of your motives.

But the biggest question here is: WHAT'S IT TO YA? What right to do you have to go spying into other people's bedrooms, and why would you want to? What gives you the right to go around making value judgments on the way anyone else lives his or her life? Maybe you should do something about your own life before you go trying to tell anyone else how to live theirs, hmm?

What's the Point?

I hear that question a lot, mostly from the doom-and-gloom crowd, who believe that one person acting alone can't make a difference, especially when confronting huge issues. Well, I guess from their perspective, it's true, because in order to make changes, you have to DO SOMETHING. I understand that there is a certain security in not rocking the boat, even when the boat is sinking. After all, until you actually feel the water soaking into your shoes, you can pretend that everything is okay and that it's only a few agitators trying to make trouble that keep insisting that the boat is sinking.
Personally, I look at the things that have had an impact on my life and my thinking and realize that almost all of it came about because of a single individual or event--a random comment that struck a chord (or a nerve), a chance discovery of a book or a film, some trivial moment or series of coincidences that came to have great significance later in my life. I've taken a few wrong turns in the journey that has been my life, but somehow or another I have always managed to find the way back to the right path. Almost always, it has been through the intervention of those people, books and events that I mentioned. Only rarely has it been because of anything our "leaders" have done or said.
I think the mistake so many people make is looking to "official" channels--government, political organizations, etc.--to make changes. While I believe that it is important, even necessary, to make sure that our leaders listen to and obey our collective voices, the only way to real and meaningful changes in the world is to make changes in ourselves. We've become more and more like children in this country, expecting Big Brother to look out for us and to solve all our problems. But Big Brother really isn't interested in solving our problems. We need to grow up and start working to solve our problems ourselves.
As far as individuals being able to make real changes, all you have to do is look at the impact that we have on those we see every day--a simple smile, a touch, a kind or encouraging word; paying forward acts of compassion shown to us; treating our children with love and respect, so that they learn to show love and respect--these are just a few of the things that we, as regular ordinary people, can do to make the world a better place. Sure, these things may not seem very important in the grand scheme of things, but if enough people were actually practising the ideals they claim to hold dear, we could reach a critical mass that would have profound and far-reaching consequences. People talk about "what comes around, goes around," but never realize that the opposite is also true. I hear people talking about how unfair life is and how nothing good ever happens to them--but when was the last time they ever DID anything good so that it COULD come back to them?
If we really want the world to be a better place, it's up to each of us to make it one, and since it has to start somewhere, why not let it start with us? Do something nice for someone, just because you can, then sit back and watch the chain reaction (like in the commercial, remember). Then think about the difference it could make if we all started doing such small things on a daily basis. Then, what a wonderful world it could be..............

A Slight Correction

Yesterday, I said that politics was never my thing--actually, that wasn't quite true. I was speaking out of certain dissillusionment with the trend of "politics" in this country and a wish that I could ignore the larger world in changing my focus to a more spiritual development. The truth is, I am very passionate about my responsibilities as a citizen of this country, even as the United States of America morphs into the Unilateral States of Amerika (or as Gore Vidal put it: the United States of Amnesia). I applaud those who take a stand and speak out for their ideals and beliefs, even if I think they are on the wrong track (or even on the wrong train), because the right to speak your mind, regardless of the position you've taken on any given issue is the very core of what it means to be an American. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by Voltaire that "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The fact is that much greater minds and voices than mine are already speaking to the issues and goals we should be pursuing so that I am doing little more than adding to the chorus without adding much to the song itself. So I am shifting my focus from "politics" into an arena that is getting less attention but is just as vital if we are ever going to see the kind of changes that our nation needs to get us back to where we need to be, and that is in the area of spirituality.
We make more of an impact on the people we see day in and day out than we ever could on those who see our faces or hear our voices or read our signs when we stand together at protest rallies and political demonstrations. When we do the right thing because it IS right (especially when it's hard or inconvenient or costs us something we value), we make more of a statement about our beliefs and ideals than attending a hundred rallies. We lead best when we lead by example, especially for our children who will have to carry on after us. But we tend to relegate our spirituality to Sunday mornings, just like we tend to limit our civic responsibility to making marks on a piece of paper and sticking it in a box.
It seems to me that that kind of perfunctory service is exactly how we got where we are, both spiritually and politically, and it has to change if we are going to see any meaningful change in either area.

Back into the Fray

I know I haven't posted anything for quite some time--I actually wasn't sure I wanted to even continue writing. It didn't seem like I had much of a readership (judging by the lack of comments), and venting my frustrations into the ether was beginning to seem like a pretty empty gesture. But over the last few days, I have begun to feel the same compulsion to write that I had when I first began this blog, that it's important to put my ideas and thoughts out into the world, whether I think anyone is reading it or not. I told my friend Batmanchester the other day how proud I am of him for taking a stand and making his voice heard, that it was important and more people needed to be standing up and making their voices heard. I felt a sharp stab of shame at having to admit that I wasn't even doing it anymore, and decided that I needed to start writing again. I just wasn't sure of the direction in which I wanted to go--politics really isn't my thing and religion is too sensitive a subject for most people--when you're trying to reach people with new insights and ideas, especially people with firm convictions and entrenched moral positions, you can't do it by offending them with radical notions they can't or won't accept, right?

I saw a video a couple of months ago called "The Celestine Prophecy," and it made a profound impression on me. More recently, I discovered the companion books--Experiental Guides, they're called. I've been working through the exercises in the first Guide and have been astounded at the difference it has already made in my life. After having been a borderline (heading into full-blown) atheist for most of my adult life, and having investigated the Goddess-based religions, I am finding myself being drawn back to God. Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not talking about the God of most Christian theologies. Personally, I still believe that their "God" is actually the Devil in disguise (see "The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled"). My God isn't necessarily male or female, God or Goddess, but more of a Universal Force of Love and Light and Life--the same God described in the "Celestine Prophecy."

I've always felt like I had a mission in life, something that I specifically came here to do. Not in the sense of being arrogant or self-important or anything like that because I'm not, but I don't think it's arrogant to acknowledge the gifts and abilities with which we are blessed (in my case a certain skill with words and language, and an ability to communicate my ideas to others). I still have a lot to learn, but I'm beginning to think that my "mission" is to share what I've learned so far, and so what if I don't reach more than a handful of people--if the Prophecy is right, the actions we take are as important as the results we seek, and maybe in reaching those few, I may be helping move the World closer to it's ultimate goal.

Why I Don't Want Hillary in the White House

It's not because she's a woman, in spite of the reverse-sexist nonsense being put out by the MSM. I would be perfectly content to vote for a woman for president--just not that one. I don't see her as being Bush-Cheney Lite, continuing the BA's freedom-to-fascism agenda. I see it the other way around: that the current Administration is carrying on that agenda as it was laid down by the previous (Clinton) Administration. Remember that she is the wife of (and some say, the REAL vice president to) the man who allowed--and must therefore bear ultimate responsibility for--the first true assault on our First Amendment rights and the second attack on our Second Amendments rights (remember Ruby Ridge, the year before?) in modern history. The term "domestic terrorist" had not come into common usage then, but if it had, I am sure that the Clintons would have used it to describe the 74 men, women and children besieged by agents of the ATF, and subsequently murdered by the FBI on April 19, 1993 at Waco, Texas. And if the Bush Administration uses and abuses the media to support its fascist policies and its assaults on our Constitutional rights by controlling the flow of information, they learned it from the Clintons--new accounts of the people and events at Mt. Carmel, both before and after the siege, were so slanted and inaccurate as to be laughable, if it weren't so horribly tragic. And if you watch the film Waco: Rules of Engagement (or any of the other films made by people interested in the truth of what really happened), you will see that the subsequent Senate "investigation" was every bit as much a whitewash as that of the 9/11 Commission.

But in order to really understand the scope of the tragedy, we have to remember that it happened in TEXAS--and when they say that Texas is like a whole 'nother country, I have to say, having been there for a while, they're right. Let's look at WHY the government felt it had to get involved in the first place: charges of sexual abuse and stockpiling of weapons and converting them into illegal automatic weapons.

As far as I can figure out, what David Koresh was doing "marrying" and having children by girls as young as 14 years old might have been immoral, might have been disgusting to most of us, but it was NOT ILLEGAL in Texas, as long as he had the girls' parents' permission (at most, he would have been guilty of bigamy.), and even if it was illegal, the agency with the proper jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute those crimes would have been local, not federal. But when the Sheriff's office and Child Services investigated the charges of abuse, they found nothing they could prosecute. That, however, didn't stop the ATF from using those charges (which were outside the scope of their agency, by the way) to justify their involvement and subsequent actions.

The charges that the Branch Davidians were stockpiling weapons was ludicrous on its face--we're talking about TEXAS, were gun ownership is almost a rite of passage--and that they were converting legal semi-automatic into illegal fully automatic weapons--which they could not "prove" until after the slaughter. The fact is that anyone who makes their living by trading in weapons tends to "stockpile" them, and having the PARTS to make a semi-automatic into a fully-automatic doesn't mean that anyone is actually doing it.

Then there is the fact that the agents LIED to the Senate committee investigators--claiming that they never fired one single shot at the Davidians, in spite of video footage shows them doing just that. (Tip to future fascist dictators and your minions: when you carry out illegal activities, if you don't want your illegalities revealed for what they are--don't make tapes of them. Sooner or later someone will find them and make them public!!!)

There is so much more I could go into, but I don't have the time or the space. Besides, the information is easy enough to find for anyone who cares to look. Suffice it to say that the reason I won't vote for Hillary Clinton is because I don't want to see anyone else dying for insisting on exercising their Constitutional rights just because those rights are inconvenient to the government, and having been--even indirectly--responsible for it once, I don't see how we can trust the Clintons not do it again.

Like I said, I would have no problem voting for a woman president--in fact, I think we NEED a woman president to stop the madness running through our government now. I just can't stomach this one.

The Price of Freedom

I have to say that I was surprised that the vote to give the telecoms immunity failed yesterday, along with the effort to extend the FISA laws--which means AT&T doesn't get a pass for helping the Administration spy on us without our knowledge or consent and the Administration has to get a judge to approve any future wiretapping. Maybe there is a chance for us to save our country yet--but I'm not holding my breath. The fact that any item on their freedom-to-fascism agenda is un-Constitutional, immoral or just plain un-American has yet to stop the current Administration from proceeding with that agenda--it just slows them down a little bit while they figure out a way to do it without it showing up on anyone's radar. It must be frustrating for them to realize just how many people are actually watching the radar. It must be just as frustrating to find that the political apathy upon which they counted so much and worked so hard to spread among the populace isn't as widespread or as deeply rooted as they thought it would be. That people do actually still care about things like Truth, Justice, Freedom--ideals for which Americans have fought and died since the very beginning of our nation.

What worries me, now that the tide seems to be turning against the evildoers who want to do us harm (by that I mean the BA and its allies in its war against us and our sincere, if somewhat naive, idealism), is how far the tide will carry us before it starts to swing back and what form the next attack will take. They have put too much effort into accomplishing their goal to abandon it because it's finally facing some stiff resistance--after all, having to take one step back after taking two steps forward is still considered forward progress. Some would call it a dance, in which case, WE need to make sure that WE are calling the tune! The biggest problem is that anger, like fear, can only be maintained for so long before it either cools back down into complacency, or erupts into violence--neither of which is a very good solution for the problems that confront us. The fact that we're watching NOW (and that they KNOW we are watching) will only push them back so far. Maintaining such scrutiny is exhausting when done by only a small group within a huge population--especially when those brave few face such condemnation by that population for their lack of "patriotism" and "paranoia." But which is more unpatriotic: those who hold governmental malfeasance up to the light of day, or the perpetrators of that malfeasance? And which is more paranoid: the people who know they are being spied on or ones who are spying so that they can catch the watchers and stop them from revealing what they know?

The vote yesterday was important in that it reminded the BA that there are some members of Congress who do still care about what the People think--especially those who want to keep their jobs--but it was only one step back. Bush's "you're all going to die if we can't spy" fearmongering still works in certain circles, and the fact that he can still rally the Republican faithful to his cause means that we can expect some kind of blowback (another 9/11?) for thwarting him in his march toward becoming the first American Caesar. It also means that we need to keep watching, keep pressuring our elected officials to hear us and respond to OUR will. It was our complacency and apathy that allowed them to succeed as well as they have--now, we have to show them that we have the will to resist sinking back into that complacency and to maintain the kind of eternal vigilance that is the price of freedom.

And While We're on the Subject..........

It seems to me that, for all of our reverence and respect for the “Founding Fathers,” we have apparently forgotten who and what they were: they were REVOLUTIONARIES in the purest sense of the word. They were the Chicago Sevens of their day, except for the fact that they not only advocated the violent overthrow of what was the LEGAL government at the time, they actually SUCCEEDED in overthrowing that government and replacing it with the form they thought would best serve the needs and interests of the American people.

We need to remember the Founders not as we see them in the paintings hung in so many public buildings--sedate, moderate, hollow--but as they really were: passionate men fighting for a radical new idea, the vision of a nation governed by THE PEOPLE rather than the aristocracy of wealth or spiritualism. They would be horrified at the way the country has slowly returned to what it was before the War for Independence--a country ruled by the economic and political interests of foreign nations at the expense of its own citizens.

Not so long ago, President Bush justified his war in Iraq by claiming that to “cut and run” would mean that all of our soldiers who had died in that war would have died in vain, but what about all of the patriots who fought and suffered and died in our very first war, the war which separated us from England and made us a nation in our own right? And what about the second war in 1812 in which England tried to reclaim America as a British colony--will we allow those who fought and suffered and died in that war to have died in vain also?

But there’s another, much more pragmatic, point which I haven’t seen brought up anywhere (if I’m wrong, I’d appreciate someone pointing it out): assuming Mike Huckabee and his followers succeed in making this a “Christian nation,” what KIND of Christian nation will it be? There are a multitude of sects which fall under the generic heading of “Christian” from which to choose--Catholic vs. Protestant being the biggest one, but under the Protestant category, you have Baptists/Southern Baptists, Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Unitarian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal/Evangelical and others. The faithful of each of those sects will passionately defend the most minute difference between themselves and the others, even when the significance of such minutiae escapes the rest of us. Would we see them battling it out for supremacy in a competition for not only the hearts and minds of people but for their bodies as well, in the form of government agents enforcing attendance at religious functions and regulating whatever behaviors the ruling religion bans or requires? Would candidates for the highest office in the land have to compete in Old Testament-like contests of “My God is better than your God,” in which the winner is determined by surpassing his rivals in the performance of miracles and wonders like altars lit by fire from heaven and the raising of the dead? No doubt the crowds would be entertained by such spectacles, but do we want our spiritual leaders reduced to the level of any talented Las Vegas showman or Hollywood special effects crew?

And what about the freedom of religion guaranteed under the First Amendment? What about the right to belong to whatever church--or to no church at all--which best fulfills our spiritual needs? Will we be compelled to change churches according to whichever church the next Political Pope (or whatever we would call the holder of the office we now call the President) belongs to? Or would we follow the Catholic model and have Popes who reign for a lifetime?

Even if I am wrong in thinking that we would ever see HOLY wars become CIVIL wars, the men who founded this country believed that the separation of church and state was vital to preserving both religious and civil freedoms, that encroachment by either into the areas rightfully belonging into the other would result in tyranny--they would certainly be shocked and outraged at the way that people like Mike Huckabee invoke them to promote a cause they would have completely opposed. And Mike’s claim that “most” of them were clergy is ridiculous--if not outright dishonest: there is no formula by which 1 out of 56 can be considered "most" of anything.

In the words of one of those Founding Fathers:

I am for freedom of religion, and against all manœuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another. — Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia , 1799