Saturday, November 19, 2016

As America decends into the Rabbit hole, can we once again find our moral compass?

This election has been something of a shock for people on all sides. Rampant corruption is now not only acceptable, but the swamp seems to be filling up instead of being drained. Anti Multicultural views took precedent with women's rights being slapped in the face yet again and the Environment is no longer even a moderate consideration. It is going to indeed be a bad place to be a human being in the US and possibly the world for the immediate future.
Authoritarian regimes throughout the world reached out to Praise the Presidential Elect in his win, Democracy screamed as she fell into a hole.

The parallels to history in this election are staggering to say the least om regards to the President Elect and nearly all have horrible out comes. One can compare this election to 1935 and the NAZI party electing a mentally unstable puppet they hoped to control, or way back to Rome and Caligula and its gross excess.
Authoritarianism is very appealing to many as it pushes simple agendas which seem to matter. The Military takes precedent over all others, well at least on the surface, problems are solved with the broad sweep of a hand and the iron fist solves all.


The reality is quit different, with the exception of a hand full of rulers, historically the people always suffer under such nonsense as their rights, which is something democracy can slowly give them, are taken instantly away and not even considered.
In our current country we have the US constitution which has some Unique Rights, and some not so Unique, but it is the basis as to which all laws in the US must conform, it provides a strong system of balances and checks, to hopefully prevent an Authoritarian regime, never the less twice in our history it has been largely stuffed aside and we made it out ok.
The first time it was mostly ignored offering us a brighter future would be under the then new third party President Mr Abraham Lincoln. The end result of course we all know well, minorities despite being used explicitly as cannon fodder would finally gain recognition as not only human beings, but as US citizens.
The second time would be during the Great Depression as FDR again seemed to ignore the constitution with amazing popularity/ While history generally looks on him fondly, he had many dark, dark aspects which are largely ignored. Millions starved to death with those surviving finding their gold savings being confiscated for the "good of the nation" However FDR would do something which many hope trump would do, spur industry. That spurring of industry came at a price however, our environment. The earth took a huge price as we lived in excess for the next few decades, mining, logging and polluting with reckless abandon. Cooler heads would eventually prevail out of necessity as rivers quit literally burned, the Republican Party, in coercion with a rational Democrat who authored the National Environmental Protection Act, which gave way to what we now know as the EPA.

The current administration has a unusual chance to side step much of this as it sweeps all of congress and the presidency leaving all of Humanity in jeopardy. With a cruel sense of Irony, the very party who gave minorities their rights, now opposes them, the same party who gave us a country with laws promising us to have a future for our children, are now opposing that future all for the now.
That party is the Republican Party.
Rational seems to have gone out the window as they attack nearly everything our country should be embracing, science seems to be on hold yet again as we are told to take comfort in a collection of Biblical writings written centuries ago by people with the educational level of a modern 5 year old. Is that really the answer to save us?
Women seem to be now given no more care than they can provide on their backs or as angry propaganda mouth pieces for what is now being coined the alt right.
Minorities in general? Well they are now the undesirables, the very people apparently responsible for all our woes, the people this collection of Angry people want to purge from our country. I will give you a hint the last time this Ideal was elected in popular ideology within the world, that was 1935 in Germany. Faced with a desperate economic situation largely acquired by the treaty of Versailles the German people pointed fingers wit ha vengeance, and indeed the rest you know, or at least should know.

So what now? Where does this leave us?
Uncertainty as always.
Trump likely will be impeached for ethics violations within his first year, however where will this leave us as far too many of his dangerous followers have crawled out of the pits of oblivion ready to spread their vile.
Mind you I am not saying all people who voted for Trump are vile, they most certainly are not, but there is a minority element that represents everything dark this world should hope to never see again.
They are armed, which is the truly frightening thing, but so are the rest of us, can we avoid the confrontation?
Perhaps with a Moral compass and patience we can.
With more education not less we can overcome the immediate dim future and focus on our children.
Perhaps out of all of this we will remember what makes us America, what makes us all Human.
Despite the hate perpetuated by both parties, as it does dear reader come from both sides, people the world wide want one thing, so listen carefully to my rule.
FFE
People want anywhere you go to Fish Fuck and Eat.

I ask you dear reader to look out your window today, from your nice climate controlled environment and tell me that homeless lady pushing her sole belongings in shopping cart is responsible for your problems. I want you to walk into that convenience store and tell me the man brown man who speaks broken English and sways his head form side to side when he talks is the cause of your life's problems?
As you browse the shopping market I want you to take a good hard look at the produce, and the people who walked often hundreds of miles with the sole purpose of enduring torturous labor for meager earnings to feed themselves, and you. Are they the reason the job market is horrible? Do you really think a under educated brown person who barely speaks English is costing you a job? Do you honestly think he wants anything less than you?

Now I want you to look away from the world you see in your immediate life, and look carefully over the horizon. Over that horizon to the east are people who are being blown to oblivion in a desperate battle for resources and control, all so you can live in cheap excess. I want you to now look at your children, and tell them if you were in the same situation, you should not be taken in by another country offering a helping hand.

Now turn to the south as the sun reaches its peak, ask yourself if the deforestation, the lung of the world in the south is worth your conveniences?
I ask you to look deep into the future and ask what you want to leave as your legacy.
Is it hate? Is it gross excess? Or is it a rational future where we can all finally get on?

I know what I want for my children, I want that Moral Compass, not just the one that guides me, but the one that nags on your shoulder to take control.

Be the change, See the future.

Links for your consideration


http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/542109.The_Order_of_the_Death_s_Head

https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-refugees

http://www.biography.com/people/caligula-9235253#!











Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Five classes every American should be required to have.

I suppose I had a common Rural Childhood for the 70 and 80s. I spent a good amount of time participating in Civics minded organizations, particularly 4-H, Cub scouts and Weeblo. Going to such organizations gave me a sense of community involvement and civic pride. IT seems to me that the following generations did not have the exposure and it shows, we have a very Me society without much knowledge about your community and being involved in civics, which brings about my first class which we all should have, Civics.
If people took civics many questions would be answered as to the 'why do we have to do this and co exist" garble which I constantly hear now days. I think if civics is taught (which seems to be called indoctrinating by todays Radical right) overall society would be far better off.
In the end the ultimate is to be part of some sort of a club which not only teaches, but applies such lessons, but at this point I will take what I can get.

First Aid; You are driving along and come upon a traffic accident, it is late at night and just you, clearly the person within the car needs attention, so what do you do? Well the sad thing is more Americans really do not have an Idea how to properly handle such a situation, which is flat out dangerous for everyone involved. What makes it dangerous? Well for one you could injure someone by not only moving them when they are injured, but in the event you have to, how would you safely do so? How would you stop bleeding? Or of course how would you possibly revive the person? At some point in your life it is highly likely you will come upon a situation where you need to apply First Aid, be it a family member or a stranger, it is a class we all should have which would help answer the above questions.

Your constitutional Rights; This seems to be yet another area most people know almost nothing about, but all like to talk about their constitutional rights, well which ones? Sadly after hearing peoples comments regarding Colin Kaepernick or even Presidential Candidates speeches and policies, most people seem to have little Idea what their rights actually are, nor what they are even good for. A class in this area certainly would help out miles, perhaps even making people again most civic minded and more involved in Politics in the correct manner. Not giving up your rights is very important, lets stop it now before it is too late.

Firearms Safety; Whether or not you own a firearm or even intend to own one, does not exclude you from the likely probability you will at some point encounter one in your life, so it makes obvious sense you have at least a basic knowledge of weapons when you do encounter one. Firearms accidents account for thousands upon thousands of lives and injuries each year, well over 30k annually.
IF we had at least that basic required class, perhaps we could lower that number substantially. This coupled with especially civics means people will overall be more responsible with a firearm. I included a picture of one thing the NRA does right, firearms safety, I included a picture of their Eddie Eagle teaching a class. This is important as people on both sides seem to forget things this organization does well, more of this, less of the other.

Science; Apparently science is no longer taught in school, be it from climate change to basic common theories, Americans seem to be clueless as to the workings of the world. Perhaps if we had more knowledge in this area religious dogma would largely disappear. Perhaps there would be a we bit of hate and less emphasis on that Imaginary friend. Now mind you before you get all huffy, I have Imaginary friends too, I just use them for conversations with myself however :O
Maybe if we had more Science in our lives, we would focus on tackling important issues such as Pollution, Ocean and Space exploration. God knows I could have understood the science behind our Moon landing a bit earlier in my life. Hell even more knowledge on the science of Climate change, one way or another would have helped me too. It sure beats the attitude of "well scientists are not always right" nonsense, no they are not always right, but they do at least have an educated guess, which is more than many can say.


In the end if we have these five things, perhaps there would be less fighting amongst ourselves, and a bit more joining of arms to move forward for the betterment of Tomorrow. We at least have to start a conversation about what is important in our childrens future, now is as good a time as any.