on providing Welfare

For this author, the main reason that we cannot allow Mitt Romney to gain our nation's highest office is that he has never read the Constitution of the United States of America. If the former governor of Massachusetts had at one time read even the preamble to this our second-most sacred document after the Declaration of Independence, he might have retained at least a distant memory that the role of government in this land is to provide for the general Welfare and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to us and to our Posterity. (Perhaps his and his Republican Party's openly-declared plans to amend the Constitution in order to define marriage as between 1 (one) man and 1 (one) woman include secret plans to edit out this embarrassing preamble, this handful of words that contradict Mr. Romney's apparent core beliefs by clearly stating that government in America is supposed to help and uplift as many people as possible, not make as few as possible fabulously rich.)

It is better, perhaps, for Mr. Romeny and the Republican Party in America (or RePIA, pronounced “rape-ya”) to remain ignorant of both the Declaration and the Constitution; if they were to take a closer look at either of these our precious documents, or to do any background investigations into the deeper meanings inherent to these two texts, they may find therein more passages aimed at spreading Liberty and equality amongst the peoples of the world that they would want to remove, amend, excise, cut out, and destroy. Curious to me is that Mitt-the-Governor-of-Massachusetts seemed to understand the role of our government far better than does Mitt-the-Candidate-for-President, he who appears to be catering to – openly and without shame – that billionaire lunatic-fringe that continues to profit from the Great Recession, from this nation's spreading of war across the globe, and from the purposeful and planned destruction of economic equality in America. I watch with consternation while riding my bicycle through this little blue-collar town as more and more banners appear on the lawns of modest homes that support Romney and Ryan; after talking with an Obama-hating neighbor, however, I am gaining some insight into his and the other Romney-supporters' views and methodology.

As far as I can tell, these people passionately hate Obama and timidly support Romney because they expose themselves to the narrow views of but a few political pundits, TV fear-mongers, and syndicated radio talk-show-hosts; they have allowed hatred to fester in their hearts by avoiding any opinions other than those that stoke their ire, preferring cocoons of self-righteous indignation to the rage-stilling effect of a careful and rational analysis of many different sources, news outlets, and opinions (my neighbor mentioned that he despised Obama not for his race but for being an idiot, even though we had not even come close to discussing the tone of our sitting President's skin). Dear reader, please understand that in the past I have been guilty of this same sort of behavior, passionately hating George W. Bush and mocking his every word and deed; now, however, seeing things from the Other Side, I recognize the danger that lurks in such narrow-minded and puffed-up views of the members of political parties. Hatred of this type obscures the true danger that is facing democracy and equality in America, which comes from people thinking that there is a difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties, that one is better than the other, that one has all of the answers and the other, none. Both of these Parties regularly mock the notion of representative government, both cater to fantastically-rich corporate and private donors to the detriment of tens of millions of hard-working average Americans, both are farcical shadows of their former selves, and both long ago sacrificed sacred Honor for the shallow reward of fleeting political power. Woe is unto us, friend – America delenda est; only through dastardly and destructive effort might we change the status-quo, and regain for ourselves all that we have lost. Mahalo, though, and keep fighting.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

pirates, parties, September

In honor of Septembarrrr, that mooncycle dedicated to All Things Pirate, let us turn our gazes to the Federal Republic of Germany, where the voice of the common man still has power. While in America people upset with Me-First capitalism, Beltway corruption, and an ever-more-menacing police state must resort to standing out in the street getting pepper-sprayed and handcuffed for expressing their political views, Deutschlanders upset with the status-quo may now look for representation from that nation's newest political party, die Piraten (the Pirates). When discussing America's two-party system and the lunacy of having just two organs to represent and address the concerns of over one-hundred-and-fifty-millions of unique voices, people often tell me that our population is simply too large, and that its members have simply too many different opinions, for there to be more than two political parties, an argument which has never made sense to me.

Can just a couple of parties represent the opinions of our massive voting base better than many different parties tailored to each region individually and to its special and unique demands and abilities? They cannot. In fact, the Democratic and the Republican parties in America do such a poor job not just of promoting the general Welfare but also of securing the Blessings of Liberty to all persons equally that it is a wonder our society has not sooner descended into civil war. Such is the failure of our massive, ineffective, easily-corruptible one-party system (because Dems and Reps are basically two sides of the same coin) that, with the efforts undertaken recently by President Obama to enact in this land a police state, our republic hardly resembles the nation it was just a dozen years ago, in the good old days before we threw up our hands in fearful defeat, rescinding our rights (Patriot Act) and allowing President Bush and his puppetmaster Dick Cheney to violate this nation's two-hundred-year-long refusal to torture or mishandle our prisoners of war (see here for link to page involving U.S. torture cells at Abu Gharib prison) and letting them violate due process, personal privacy, the Geneva Convention, and the notion that every human being – American or not, combatant or not – has the right to a swift trial by his or her peers.

Arrrr! I have fallen into a tirade against old man bushes and his triggerhappy boss, losing myself in vile and vituperative rebuke against the forces of bygone evil. Regarding the links posted above, at least the Germans can now vote instead of hurling paving-bricks and fighting small armies to secure their rights; in America, though, we have come to see police officers as persons with ultimate power, as nearly god-like individulas whom we dare not touch, spite, or trust. We have forsaken personal Liberty and self-determination for a state of questionable Safety in which the only reason the cops exist is to punish us for not following the tens of thousands of different laws that we our political leaders have passed. To whom can we turn in this our time of woe? On whom do we rely to secure for us the Blessings of Liberty and to represent the interests of the Commons and of the common man alike? Our two national political parties do not do these things; Republicans and Democrats sit on Capitol hill in plush, tax-payer-financed office suites receiving visits from lobbyists and corporate donors who hand over envelopes stuffed cash. Oh, if we but lived in a democracy; oh, if our supposed representatives would but give up their fat paychecks, cushy pensions, and comprehensive coverage and try living on minimum wage for a while without access to decent health-care. Then, dear friend, then we would see some positive change in this country. I fear, however, that we may have to wait a few years until a person from the Pirate Party of America takes the presidency. Ho hum teedle-dum and a bottle of mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit