Monthly Archives: July 2016

07.30.16
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Politics

Well I have watched the RNC and the DNC, taken some time to digest it all and have come to some conclusions.

Donald Trump is a God! Apparently. He can do anything and everything he wants to do, just by saying he can. That’s pretty damn impressive. I have never in my life seen such a narcissist that uses the word “I” as much a Herr Trump.

The entire RNC was pretty much dedicated to the derision of Hillary, a lot of wishful thinking, and a flaming narcissist with a god complex. If anyone actually believes Adolph Trump would do anything except line his (and others like him) pockets, they need their heads examined. Therefore many people need their heads examined.

The DNC was more or less dedicated to personalizing Hillary. There were plenty of jabs at Drumpf but most were class acts compared to chants of “Lock her up” from the RNC.  I found the DNC was significantly better presented overall with a much better tone. I walked away from the DNC with an appreciation for what politics could be. I walked away from the RNC completely disgusted, angry at the lies and personal attacks, and a renewed galvinization of the understanding that the R party is no longer in touch with reality.

Is Hillary the perfect candidate? No. But with her public office record she may be the most over qualified candidate for the office of president I have ever seen. I would have liked for Bernie to come out on top though, as I feel his ideas for changing what is screwed up in this country are good ideas with a lot of potential for positive change. But here we are, with a choice between an extremely wealthy asshole who made his millions with carefully planned bankruptcies, stiffing those who he owed money (that weren’t eliminated in the bankruptcies), and setting up a fake university to con desperate people of their savings. Or we have Hillary, an imperfect candidate to be sure, but in the entire history of politics in this country I don’t believe the choice between two candidates that in their own ways leave much to be desired, can be more clear.

I have no choice but to vote Hillary Clinton. I really feel like anyone that is not an ignorant beer swilling racist redneck has any choice but to vote Hillary Clinton. Despite that assumption, I fear this election will be closer than any rational minded person will be comfortable with. With that in mind I have been asking people I know if they plan on voting. If they say no I encourage them to get out and vote. I don’t try to persuade anyone as to who they should vote for. I do try to emphasize the importance of voting in this election.

So, are you going to vote?

 

 

 

07.08.16
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Are We Civilized?

In the course of a couple of days we have two dead for being black and 5 dead with many more wounded in Dallas.

We have Isis. We have North Korea. We have had Stalin, Hussein, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, Hitler, too many more to mention. We have an entire history based upon war, violence, and mayhem. What are we really? We are supposed to be the smart ones. The tool users. With the brains to figure out how things work, how to improve our lives, how to fix things. Why can’t we fix ourselves?

I have often thought of civilization as a thin veneer. The icing on the cake if you will. That thin outer layer is our so called civil society. The cake underneath is all the rest. All of the bad things we don’t want to talk about or admit we have anything to do with. Our predudjices, our desires, our dislikes, our fears. Dig a little deeper and you will find our hate, bigotry, racism, and other nasties that some of us do work at trying to overcome. Dig deeper still and somewhere in all of that ugliness that is the human condition, and you will find the desire and the will to kill. What? You say you would never do such a thing?

Really?

We all have the capacity and the capability to kill. It is the motive that differs. The situation. The particulars. Prisons are full of people who killed solely because they thought they could get away with it. Think the Hatfields and the Mcoys, revenge and pride are good motives. How about self defense? Would you react in a violent manner to save your own skin, or that of a family member? I would. How about grandma waking up one day and deciding she has had enough of grandpas shit and she whacks him a hammer. It happens. We are human. We react in anger and that anger sometimes kills.

It kills innocent black men, it kills policemen, it kills families, it kills populations.

Now that we have faced up to our true nature, what do we do fix it? Is it even possible to fix an ingrained human condition? I doubt it honestly. If history has shown anything it is our quickness to anger and capacity to kill. We are little better than the animals on the savannah. Indeed that’s where we came from. But despite all of that, we have become civilized to a point. We have huge teeming cities, extensive trade networks, friends and allies all over the globe. We have our neighborhoods, families, and friends. We have people coming together trying to console and/or offer aid those who have lost friends and loved ones, or their homes in times of tragedy. We have so much working for us. But damn it all there are days I think the hoarders with their bunkers just might be the sane ones.

I have hope for humans and civilized society. But I really feel like I am a living part of our history, a continuation of the history behind us. A testament to our true nature that gets swept up under the rug. Underneath the icing.