BartBlog

[Note:  This posting may contain trace elements of sarcasm.]
Rev. Billy Graham has been a spiritual adviser for Presidents for over a half century.  Is he accusing America of war crimes?

Surely the new Pope would know Nazi methodology if he saw it.  Is he speaking out against waterboarding?

Are any of the people who are still alive and who survived the German concentration camps saying anything about America committing war crimes?

Do you see any members of America’s clergy saying anything about war crimes?
It’s time for the loudmouth liberals to cut the crap and tow the line.

Turn on to Jesus Christ.
Tune in to your local member of the clergy.
Drop out of the unpatriotic group which bandies the term “war crimes” about with reckless abandon, and start reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to watch a clip of Jesse Ventura putting Hasselbitch in her place on the View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHyy2sgm8Io

In my political spectrum, I have always described myself as so far left you can’t find me without the Hubble, and Ventura has been in the other galaxy on the right of me. But a lot of things have changed since the 90’s…

I lived in several cities around the U.S. between ’02 and ’06 and I now live where I grew up in WI.  Things are a lot different here since I returned from living out east. In the 90’s most people here could count on well-paying jobs in various industries. Now, for the first time that I can remember since the 70’-80’s, people are truly worrying about their jobs, their lives, their ability to manage a family. Even more shocking to me is that many younger people in their 20’s and 30’s that I have talked to have almost conceded that they will never be able to afford a home, a nice car, have affordable health care and be able to raise a family. Every week I hear sound bytes on the local news about jobs lost in this state, sandwiched between major American idol coverage. Every time I take a walk in Milwaukee at night it seems there are more homeless people, many of which are vets. Every time I hear someone talk about the American dream, they are usually part of the baby boom generation.

But something really eerie happened today. Some people got off their asses and picketed in Kenosha, WI in front of the Chrysler plant, which happens to be Paul Ryan’s district (R-Regressive). Most were affiliated with a union, which I thought were extinct since Reagan, and they had real messages and signs about jobs and how vital they are to this nation’s infrastructure…not tea party hats or some vague, idiotic taxation slogans. The last time that happened was when Lee Iacocca (or whatever his name was) damn near bankrupted Chrysler and people in Kenosha at the plant worried about losing their jobs took to the streets. Saint Reagan’s solution for Chrysler in the 80’s was to award it a huge defense contract, building components for M-1 Abrams tanks. Sustainable long term company growth? Perhaps, but only when tanks etc. need to get replaced in perpetual wars.

A few soon-to-be unemployed Chrysler workers out there in this generation that I talked to voted GOP because they thought republicans would help them economically more than democrats would, so Ryan won the district, even though Obama won there as well. Now, it’s almost a certainty that everyone that was on that picket line will lose those jobs. But at least they were out there…concerned, with open minds, wondering what the fuck happened, and not blaming it on either party. From what I gather, people are beginning to realize that those same short term fix concepts that Republicans have advocated for the past 30 years have destroyed their standard of living.

Many of the companies that have manufactured durable goods in the U.S. now find it more profitable to manufacture overseas. Yet profits have increased for companies that manufacture high-tech military goods in the U.S. and for energy companies that procure natural resources overseas. That sounds almost sustainable, until one considers the human death toll of using that high tech weaponry to secure resources around the globe, or the moral costs of trying to justify that to the American people through outright lies and attempts to torture people until they say what our leaders want the American people to hear. These “economic” policies have turned our treasury into borrowed money from Saudi Arabia, China, etc., evaporated 40% of people’s 401k’s, substantially devalued their homes, and the only real fix now is to let the federal reserve print money after it’s spent.

Sustainable corporate, public and private economic growth is what all Americans need now. Not short term economic policies, quick profit schemes and perpetual wars to sell some of the only products that our country can continue to produce that are competitive on the world market. Any way you look at it, the military-industrial complex is a poor investment for this nation. The costs of deploying that hardware far exceed the return of investment in terms of jobs or corporate profits and degrade this country in intrinsic ways that most right-wingers or even CEO’s cannot even begin to comprehend. Can you get a good deal on an F-22? Probably not, but you can on a Chrysler or a GM vehicle…or real estate now. Any way you look at it, the industries that can sustain the US economy are failing, most notably the financial industry.

Certain issues transcend the left/right political spectrum. Ironically, some of those are being used by the media in order to divide and conquer us, turning us into well-behaved workers and consumers, fighting among ourselves for ideological concepts we have no real understanding of. The end result is that many Americans lose sight of what’s important. Equity under the law, taking responsibility for policies and decisions as public servants employed by the taxpayers, implementing sound long term growth policies for the benefit of whatever organization you work for, not lying your ass off on TV to the American people or to your boss, things like that are important to everyone, no matter what you call yourself politically.

Concepts like that touch on the real human, ethical and moral issues that your average joe-plumbin’ six-pack doesn’t have to think about unless it hits him directly in the wallet. But when it does, it can get people off the damn TV and in the streets. What I saw in Kenosha, WI gives me hope that more and more Americans are waking up and beginning to realize that most of our representatives, regardless of party affiliation, may not have our best interests in mind.

I don’t care which political party stands up for the decisions and policies that help most of the people in this country…I just would like to see one that does. Ventura tells it like it is, and I respect that. After the first Bush crime family “don” left office, I voted third party: a democratic socialist named J. Quinn Brisben. The Eduard Bernstein model of democratic socialism seems to be working very well in places like Norway, Denmark and Venezuela. I may vote third party again, but only if there is a truly viable third party. Perhaps that’s what “lefties” and “right-wingers” should work on in the next 4 years – a viable third party…not a stooge like Nader, a maniac like Duke, or a democratic party that will sell us out to corporate interests just like the Bush crime family did, but with a little candy and whipped cream on top. At least for now the republicans are out of the running.

Greg in WI