Ignorance as a form of oppression

The hallmark of any truly free and open society is the access of its citizens, regardless of social, economic or professional status, to education and information. The purpose of education is to free the mind, to encourage independent thought and fresh perspectives on accepted "truths"--anathema to those seeking conquest and domination, which require blind acceptance and obedience to authority.

All throughout history, oppressive regimes (from the the Catholic Church to Nazi Germany to Communist China and North Korea) have first sought to stamp out free thought, primarily by restricting educational access, because an illiterate and ignorant populace is much easier to control and manipulate. Those who can't read must depend on others for information, and if that information is being distorted for political or financial gain, the people in their ignorance are in danger of condoning all manner of evils.

Over the past several decades, the American education system has been under attack--most clearly so after the federal government took control of it. Budget cuts have caused the closures of many schools, resulting in impossible class sizes and a lack of resources (including qualified teachers), which has driven the system to the brink of collapse. Literacy in America is declining at an alarming rate--if you want to see the statistics, you can visit this website: http://www.nifl.gov/nifl/facts/facts_overview.html. Public libraries are being closed, or being forced to reduce their hours of operation, to depend more and more on volunteers and to restrict the resources they provide.

Americans as a whole have become intellectually lazy, preferring entertainment to education, and propaganda rather than actual news. They accept what they are told by the corporate media because it is easier than asking questions that might reveal unpleasant or uncomfortable truths. If you want to see just how much of our "news" is actually propaganda put out by the media for the benefit of a corrupt and oppressive administration, all you have to do is go online and read what is being reported elsewhere around the world. It's shocking how much more the rest of the world knows about what is really happening in this country than the average American knows--or cares to know.

Do we really want to live with the same shame the Germans are still haunted by--that of having to acknowledge that they knew all along but refused to admit that the smell from the camps a few miles away was the smell of burning human flesh? Do we really have to wait for the day the rest of the world decides that we are as great a danger to the safety and security of the world as the Nazis were, and forms its own "Coalition of the Willing" to stop us?

It's time for us to start paying careful attention to the actions--not just the speeches--of those we elected to make changes instead of continuing to conduct business as usual. The voting records of our Senators and Representatives is a matter of public record, and we need to start examining those records, but we can't do that if we can't read. Our rights as Americans are being stripped away, but we can't even know what rights we losing if we can't read the Constitution for ourselves.

But first, we need to get past the ridiculous idea that questioning those in power is somehow un-American or unpatriotic. Being able to question our leaders and hold them to rigorously high standards has always been an American principle. Blind obedience to authority and the surrender of critical thinking skills are things demanded of fascist regimes, oppressive dictatorships and false gods, and it's tolerance of those things that is un-American and unpatriotic.

Bush is a National Hero?

When I started this thing, I decided I would respond to comments only in the comments section, but I got one comment that has bothered me so much that I feel I have to comment on it more directly and fully. The comment was to my "Birds of a Feather" post, and it was to the effect that Bush is a national hero and that we "fringers" are a bunch of freaks. (There was another one on a different post that we "fringers" should all f**ing die, but I'll let that one go for now.)

First of all, if we "fringers" are a bunch of freaks, it's only in that we insist on thinking for ourselves, rather than simply accepting what we are told--especially when what we are being told contradicts the evidence and common sense.

Second, at this point, I don't see how anyone can still believe that Bush is a national hero--or any kind of hero, for that matter. Forget all of the "conspiracy theories" and just look at the sheer volume of things that even the MIC-controlled media is reporting on--there is enough smoke to convince even the densest moron that there is a fire somewhere and if we don't do something NOW to put it out, it will burn us all.

I don't have the space to list everything this administration is or seems to be guilty of, but here are just a few that should make anyone with a lick of sense stop and wonder:

1. Betraying his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution (the North American Union, The Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act)


2. Being WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S. (Iraq, Iran, immigration and border security, kowtowing to Israel).


3. Being lax in enforcing Immigration laws.


4. Lying and distorting intelligence to justify an immoral war with one country and trying to do it again with another, to satisfy and "ally" (Israel) who only has its own best interests in mind.


5. Consistently appointing to federal office right-wing fanatics with little or no qualification for that office, and with demonstrable conflicts of interest because they are willing to put loyalty to him and to the Party ahead of the interests of the American people: Brown at FEMA, Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Gonzo at DOJ, most cabinet department heads, the Supreme Court, to name a few.


6. Sacrificing the health and safety of the American people by gutting the budgets of those agencies that are supposed to protect us (like the FDA).


7. Insisting on a level of secrecy appropriate to fascist dictatorships, not a republic devoted to freedom and justice, under the pretext of "national security" and invoking executive privilege to protect himself and his flunkies from the consequences of their criminal activities.


8. Pushing for the privatization of government services for the benefit of his corporate masters and to the detriment of the American people.


9. Rendering people to secret prisons in foreign countries known to engage in torture (even though those secret prisons are located on American military bases, which essentially makes them American soil, just like embassies, and means that any torture being conducted there is being done by Americans--or American agents, which amounts to the same thing).


10. Denying proper medical care to our troops exposed to "Gulf War Syndrome" (the result of exposure to depleted uranium shells, chemical and biological weapons fallout, and experimental vaccines).


11. Exposing our captured soldiers and citizens abroad to the risk of torture because he has violated the Geneva Conventions through his own use of torture (and yes, water boarding IS torture).


12. Pulling the United States out of the International Criminal Court to protect himself and his own family from lawsuits brought by holocaust survivors (or their descendants) for war crimes committed by his grandfather, Prescott Bush, and the crimes for which he, himself, is responsible.


13. Making Americans hated and feared around the world because of our obvious imperialistic ambitions (college students travelling through Europe now mark their backpacks with the Canadian maple leaf instead of the American flag), which is openly reported on in the foreign press, but almost never mentioned in our media.


14. Touting his "service" in the Air National Guard spot Daddy got him, then forcing out of a job the guy (Dan Rather) with the guts to take a hard look at that service record.

There is so much more than this list is barely scratching the surface, but it's enough to see that there is SOMETHING nefarious and decidedly un-American going on, and we need to do something about it NOW.

The Death Penalty is NOT About Justice

The fallout over the New Jersey legislature's vote to abandon its death penalty has pointed out once again that people are sadly confused about the reality of capital punishment. I am personally against capital punishment--not only because its wrong for anyone to take a life for any reason, but because it doesn't accomplish anything. There is no justice in taking a life for a life, it merely compounds the injustice, and it isn't really any kind of deterrent in stopping anyone else from taking lives. In fact, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/) and the FBI's own statistics, the homicide rates in states with the death penalty are actually higher than those in states without. Homicide rates as a whole are actually falling in this country, according to those FBI statistics, in spite of what you hear on the MCI-controlled media.

Of course, the Republicans are frothing at the mouth about the New Jersey vote, and the families of murder victims are (understandably) quite upset at being denied what they consider justice for the loss of their loved ones. But really, how does the murder of one individual at the hands of the State make up for the loss of a loved one? Does having the State carry out the sentence of death make it better than doing it yourself? Does it bring back the loved one, or does it just satisfy a grieving family's need for vengeance?

If we are going to allow capital punishment (and we are the one of the few "civilized" nations on the face of the Earth to do so), we should at least be clear about the reasons for it. Is it really to protect society, or to wreak vengeance? If we are going to claim we want to protect society, then we need to re-examine our guidelines on who qualifies as a danger to that society. There are much bigger threats to our society than the guy who loses his mind for a minute to a particular set of circumstances that will never happen again--like those who make a career out of sacrificing our lives and freedoms for fun and profit.

I have a few questions for those who insist on this Old Testament eye-for-an-eye kind of "justice." First, why, if these executions are so justified, carry them out behind high walls and barbed wire, in the dark of night? Why not in broad daylight, in the public square, like Saudi Arabia (who makes no pretense about the reason they are cutting off someone's head or hands)? Why are Republicans, who portray themselves as so concerned for the sanctity of life when talking about abortion, screaming so loudly about New Jersey abolishing its death penalty--after all, isn't taking the life of an adult just a form of retroactive abortion? Why the hypocrisy in our concern that the method of execution not be cruel and unusual, when the sentence itself is cruel and unusual in comparison to how most of the rest of the world deals with its killers? It can't be a coincidence that the country with the highest murder rates also have a brutal and medieval system of justice--I think those two elements feed into and reinforce each other--blood for blood only begets more blood. The hypocrisy becomes even more evident when you consider the case of Wesley Allen Dodd, a convicted child molester and murderer, whose execution was actually protested because he, himself, wanted to be executed--in fact, went to court to stop the appeals being made on his behalf.

And if the goal is truly to protect society, why not take the millions of dollars spent each year on executions and use them instead to fund prevention programs? There are a lot of prevention programs that are demonstrably effective, but have very little reach because of chronic funding problems. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure--especially when the "cure" is a system fraught with problems: corrupt DAs out to make a career, faulty evidence, bribed or prejudiced juries, to name just a few of the most egregious problems. We may never know how many innocent men and women have already died because the system failed, but we can demand there not be any more.

Birds of a Feather

If you really want to find out about someone, don't believe what they, or their PR people, say--look at what they do and, especially, look at who they consider friends. Like the old saying goes, "birds of a feather, flock together."

Take our "president," for example. The MIC-owned media, and even Bush himself, try to paint our president as a champion of freedom and democracy, but his actions and associations paint a very different picture. Our country has been heading toward fascism for decades, but his administration has carried the agenda forward with astonishing speed, and the world leaders he considers his best friends and allies preside over some of the most repressive regimes on the planet. The one that comes to mind first is Saudi Arabia.

That the Bush family has long-standing ties to the bin Laden clan is a well-documented fact, and the bin Ladens are very close to the Saudi royal family, being one of, it not the, largest construction firms in that country. So how much of a coincidence can it be that we trained, equipped and funded one of the family scions in his fight against the Russians in Afghanistan? (Personally, given the US's penchant for turning allies into enemies--Noriega, Saddam, Osama, to name just a few--I'm amazed that we can get anyone to be our friends. It seems to me that it would be a little like grabbing on to a two-edged sword held by someone with Parkinson's--sooner or later, you're going to lose some fingers.) The fact that the Saudi government is extremely repressive to it's people is also a well-documented fact. It practices one of the "purest" forms of Islam and prides itself on how severely it punishes crimes and subjugates its women. The Saudi clan has been Wahhabi since the family married into the sect in 1774. Now why is it that it's ok for the Saudis to belong to the Wahhabi sect, when the Taliban was so vilified for it in Afghanistan?

Remember the flak in the press (short-lived as it was) about the Saudis giving money to the family of suicide bombers who killed Americans? And that 14 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi? And that it was Saudi Arabia who imposed the oil embargo that caused such a crisis here in the 70's? And that there is as much, if not more, state-sponsored terror coming out of Riyadh than out of Tehran? And let's not forget Osama.

I can't think of a single reason we would have these people as allies, when everything their religion teaches and their government practices is so completely opposite from everything our country is supposed to stand for, unless it's because our president's thinking is right in line with theirs. Oh yeah, I forgot: it's the oil. Except for the fact that, if he wasn't a short-sighted, greedy bastard of an oil baron himself, he could put the vast resources of the US government to work to find alternatives so that we could free ourselves of the need for foreign oil, thereby freeing ourselves from the need to kowtow to the producers of that oil. But that would actually strengthen our national security, and wouldn't serve the agenda of control through fear that this Administration finds so useful, would it?

But it's not just George Jr--it's the whole family:
Brother Jeb got Daddy to pardon his friend, Orlando Bosch, when he was accused of killing 76 people in Cuba by blowing up a plane, and Columba, Jeb's wife, got away with merely being embarrassed when she was caught smuggling nearly $20,000 worth of clothing and jewelry into the country from France.
Brother Neil--Mom donated money to the victims of Katrina, but only if the money was used to buy computers from Neil's comany.
Uncle Prescott Jr., who owned the only company allowed to do business in China (exporting communications satellites) and had ties to Manuel Noriega (I'm assuming that was before we decided he was public enemy number one and invaded his country to remove him, but who knows for sure?)
Grandpa Bush managed to not only avoid prosecution for giving aid and comfort to an enemy during wartime (otherwise known as treason) but managed to get himself elected a Senator for the State of New York. Some reports say there is no evidence that Prescott Bush supported the Nazi agenda, but to me that would make him even more of a soulless bastard. Claiming it was "just business" isn't much of a defense when that "business" funds the murder of millions and people and the terrorizing into mute silence of millions more.

So the next time our President gets on TV, look past the baby face and innocent demeanor to the monster lurking behind the mask. Look past his public statements and ridiculous rhetoric to his actual record. Look to who he hangs with and considers his buddies, and look to his family. What more do you need to know?

The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled

People say that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people that he did not exist--personally, I think the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing people that he was God. Would the "God" you believe in condone genocide, incest, rape, child sacrifice, slavery, and a host of other crimes, or are those things you would associate more with the Devil?

I'm not the first one to make such a shocking suggestion, either--the Cathars, a religious sect in France that appeared in the 11th century (and were rumored to have safeguarded the Holy Grail for a time), believed Satan was identical to the Old Testament God. Because they believed that the Earth was created by Satan, they considered the physical world to be evil and lived lives of great self-denial until they were condemned by the Catholic Church as heretics in the 13th century and wiped out.

I've always wondered why, if there really was only one "God," he would claim that he was a jealous God--who would there be to be jealous of? Jealousy usually indicates, at the very least, a certain insecurity about one's status--not something I would associate with an almighty, all-powerful God. Also, if "He" were alone, and, in fact, a "he," where would he have gotten the idea for two sexes when he was creating the creatures he wanted to live on his Earth? And if He were, as we are encouraged to believe, asexual, then making two sexes seems even more puzzling to me. Then there are the contradictions in his behavior--one loving and generous and forgiving, the other vengeful and angry and destructive. Now, I'm not a psychiatrist or anything, but I know enough bipolar people to recognize the symptoms when I see them, unless we are talking about two separate Gods.

My intent in all of this is not to get people worked up into a frenzy in defense of their God. It is, as I have said before, simply to get people to THINK about the things they believe when it comes to God and religion in general. Blindly accepting whatever dogma or doctrine you are spoon-fed as a child or stumble into after your life has reached a crisis point, is not the answer. It leaves you wide open to exploitation by unscrupulous leaders who seek power at any cost. As an example, I point to the current exploitation of honest, good-hearted people by the evangelical/political machine. These people are being used to further an agenda that will ultimately enslave them once their leaders have no further use for them, without them ever seeing it coming.

Think about it: every major religious describes their followers as flocks of sheep. Why? Because sheep are easily led, easily sheered, and easily slaughtered. In the book of Matthew we are warned of "ravening wolves" who come dressed in sheep's clothing, and that we will be able to recognize them "by their fruits," which means the things they do. Look at what our supposedly oh-so-Christian leaders have been doing, and continue to do--stripping us of our rights, spying on us, engaging in immoral wars, handing our government functions over to corporations whose only interest is in milking us of every last penny--all the while proclaiming their Christian faith and their faith in God--so, I have to wonder, which God would that be?

If At First You Don't Succeed

A few months ago, I made a comment to someone that when we got into WWII, it wasn't really to stop the Nazis, it was to help change their venue. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to see parallels between the Reichstag (the German parliament building) fire and 9/11, because when I used the Google to search for those parallels, I got 13,500 results. It makes a grim sort of sense, though, when you think about it, though. After all, the Bush family (through Grandpa Prescott) paid a lot of money to develop the Nazi playbook and no one wants to lose such a huge investment. It's just that very few families have the political clout to safeguard that investment.

(The Bush family's involvement in politics goes back much further than most Americans realize. Mama Bush's grandfather was Franklin Pierce, who was widely regarded was the worst president ever until George. And as I've pointed out elsewhere, Grandpa Bush managed to avoid prosecution for treason and become elected as a New York Senator.)

Look at these parallels:

1. The Reichstag fire was officially blamed on communists and resulted in the passage of the Enabling Act which suspended certain constitutional rights; the attack on the WTC and Pentagon was blamed on Islamic terrorists and resulted in the the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, which virtually suspended the same constitutional rights.



2. Hitler used his power to declare war on his neighbors under the pretense of protecting German interests; Bush used his power to declare war on anyone who was "against us."



3. Hitler had his "good Germans" to support him, even when his abuses had become obvious to anyone with half a brain (I mean, how could you live near a death camp and not recognize the smell of burning human flesh?); Bush has his "patriotic Americans," who toe the party line, even when the smell has risen sky high.



4. Hitler valued loyalty more than education, experience, or connection to reality; Bush values loyalty more than eduction, experience or qualifications for the position to which he is appointing them.

Now, when you use the Google to search for parallels between Bush and Nixon, you get 12,700,000 hits. The newest connection is the CIA's destruction of two interrogation tapes, which immediately reminded me of the mysterious 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. Forget the fact that destroying those two tapes was probably illegal as part of the material requested by Congressional investigators--it was DUMB. I can't be the only one that made the connection between the CIA tapes and the Watergate recordings, can I? With all of the speculatory connections being made between this Administration and the criminal cabal over which Nixon presided, why would anyone with any sense at all want to make tangible connections?

But there is one thing you have to give Nixon credit for: I doubt Nixon's press secretary would have ever done anything as stupid as Dana Perino's admission that she didn't know anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, she is the spokesperson for the White House and she is admitting ignorance about something of such profound importance? Shouldn't the Administration's mouthpiece know at least a little something about an event that brought our country to the brink of nuclear war? I know it happened before she was born, but I was hardly out of diapers myself and I know more about it than that it happened in Cuba and was some kind of crisis. Didn't she have to take some kind of history class somewhere along the way to becoming White House Press Secretary? Ron Zeigler must be spinning in his grave.

For the Record

In case anyone thinks that I am an atheist, let me state for the record that I am not. True, I am leaning in that direction, but I haven't quite made up my mind yet. I do believe that there must have been some powerful force that created the heavens and the earth and everything they contain, but I do not believe that force to be "God" as He has been portrayed by most religious doctrines. I do believe that prayer works, but I believe it works for the same reason Wiccan magic works. When you pray (or cast a spell), you are focusing your energy on a particular goal, then releasing that energy to accomplish that goal. It's the mechanics, not the formula.

And I'm not trying to convince anyone to abandon their religious faith. I'm all for people having a spiritual code that guides them into being better people. My problem is with any code that requires people to surrender their critical thinking skills. What's wrong with examining and questioning things, especially anything as important as how you will spend eternity? Matthew 7:7 tells us, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." But it's been my experience that people who put themselves forward as spiritual authorities welcome only those questions that they are comfortable with answering. If the answer they would have to give involves any form of "I don't know," then you're likely to be told the equivalent of "take my word for it." We tend to be suspicious of salesmen who say that--why should preachers get a pass, when what they are selling is so much more important than a used car or a kitchen appliance?

The advice given to anyone seeking a spiritual "master" these days includes the warning that anyone who asks that you pay them (preferably up-front) for your training is probably a fraud--unless, of course, that "master" is preaching the "Word of God." Again, I have no problem with a priest, minister, pastor or televangelist soliciting money if they really are going to use whatever money people give them to actually help those in need. But how many of them really do? If they are using the money their followers send them to build fantastic churches and amusement parks and buy themselves expensive cars and homes and dress their wives like queens, maybe they need to go back and reread what Jesus had to say on the subject.

I have never understood why "God" needs money, anyway. Especially to build churches to His "glory." After all, He already built himself a more magnificent cathedral than any mere mortal could ever even hope to equal--the Earth itself. I find it difficult to believe that God would find himself in financial difficulty--and if he did, I don't think that, after creating the heavens and the earth, creating a pile of cash would pose much a problem, do you?

Like I said, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of a faith that works for them--I just wish they'd take a little time to think about what it is that they believe, and to look at the leaders they follow and the agenda those leaders are promoting. Is it really your spiritual wellbeing these (mostly) men are concerned with, or the contents of your wallet? Think about it.

Pope Benedict said in his most recent encyclical that the attempt (by atheists) to banish God has "led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice." All I can say it takes a lot of huevos for the head of one of the most blood-soaked organizations in history to lay the blame for the situation the world is in on those who call for the triumph of reason over tribal superstition. But then again, "cruelty and violations of justice" would be something that the head of the Catholic Church would know something about, isn't it? After all, it was the Catholic Church who was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of women in the Burning Times (along with a few thousand men and children, and a handful of farm animals). And to those who point out that the witch burnings happened a long time ago when the vast majority of people were ignorant and superstitious, I would remind them that the Church stood silent accomplice to the rounding up and slaughter of millions of Jews during WWII. Does that mean that the population of Europe was still ignorant and superstitious well into the 20th century?

Aside from all of that, we have to look at what is going on in this country with the rise of the evangelicals in politics. Supposedly, their Christian faith should make these people more compassionate toward their fellow human beings, particularly those who have "lost their way." Instead, these people are some of the least compassionate--calling for the drastic reduction, if not outright elimination, of most of the social programs put in place to make sure we don't have crowds of people starving in the streets. Instead, they want the churches running those programs, even though a lot of those churches only want to help those who belong to them (I can think of two Baptist churches--one in Washington state and one in Florida--who insist that you join their church before they will give you any assistance.) And our evangelical-in-chief, George Bush, wants his Office of Faith-Based Initiatives elevated to a cabinet position--even while he is endorsing the use of torture on people merely suspected of wanting to harm Americans and denying them the means to defend themselves. How compassionate and godly is that?

The Catholic Church wants to ban abortion because human life is sacred--how sacred can it be if it means condemning those children to a life of suffering and deprivation at the hands of women forced to have children they cannot afford to feed or cannot look at without being reminded that that child was born of an act of violence? And to those who suggest giving those children up for adoption--I would point out that there are already thousands of kids who will never find good homes for without dumping thousands more on an already shaky system. The Church turns a blind eye to the thousands of kids who commit suicide every year because they can't tell anyone--especially their families who are supposed to love and accept them no matter what--that they love or have desires for someone with the same genitalia. The Church condemns untold numbers of women and children to lives of misery and abuse at the hands of husbands and fathers they cannot escape--Church doctrine holds that divorce is a major sin. Families needing counseling are forced to seek it from men who have no practical understanding of the trials and tribulations of marriage and parenting--to me, that's kind of like seeking emergency medical attention from a lawyer, who might have some knowledge of medicine if he handles tort cases, but it's a far cry from any real medical training.

Personally, I find it encouraging that more and more people are choosing to live ethical, rather than moral lives. To choose the path of reason and informed observation, rather than blind faith and ignorant superstition. While I've met few on that path who call themselves atheists, the ones I've met who do are some of the most decent and caring people I've ever known, while some of those in the evangelical church I belonged to in my young-adult years, were some of the hardest-hearted and most condescending people I have known. The pastor of that church used to lecture me from the pulpit about my sporadic attendance, questioning my dedication to "God" rather than finding out about the circumstances in my life that prevented me from attending regularly (namely an abusive and controlling spouse who resented my doing anything that took me outside the house). It was that kind of hypocracy, and that I encountered in the Catholic endoctrination of my childhood that drove me to find another path, and I'm glad to find out that I'm not alone.