- Watching the Democratic Convention I was put in mind
of the eight day test pattern, flag draped funeral dirge of President Ronald
Reagan, who certainly wasn't cut down in his prime.
-
- The only thing missing from the four day red-white-and
boo-Democratic-extravaganza infomercial; was Buffy and Biff showing us
that new miracle-waterless cookware-which dissolves baked on grease while
you sleep. With one scripted speaker after another-- I kept waiting for
that miracle blender that cleans windows-remotely starts the car-and changes
tires. Then there was the competition on who could most identify with the
downtrodden.
-
- Sharpton's mother cleaned house, Edwards dad worked in
a mill, and Kerry's brush with roughing it, was his four months in Vietnam.
There was really no contest here. Who could beat out Barack Obama of Illinois
running for a U.S.Senate seat? A goat herder's son from Africa-a graduate
of Columbia and Harvard-can't top that. I agree he was affable-and a refreshing
change from, "Bring them on-they hate us-we're safe but not safe enough"
rhetoric from Foggy Bottom. I guess it's this star status that is so disturbing.
Barack seemed to be auditioning for acceptance into the Foggy Bottom -Cradle
to Grave- Life's a Beach Club.
-
- There was just something creepy about the whole thing.
The costumes-blocks of cheese hats (Wisconsin delegates)-button mania-red-white-and
boo; draped over chairs, balconies, balloon bagged ceilings, and of course
delegates. Flags and blasting music- saw sweating shop keepers, toll booth
collectors-Dairy Queen clerks-Walmart Greeters-shampoo girls-and septic
tank cleaning men, gyrating to rock-a-billy-donkey tunes, doing the butt
dance and slurping down the free booze at party after party. More alarming
was the uniformity of it all. It seemed a lot like Orwell's 1984 and the
permitted two minutes of hate (only this was released ecstasy). Up went
the yellow signs-then the blue-then the red---then pole like signs, with
Kerry-Kerry-Kerry! Not an original homemade sign in the bunch. NOT ONE.
With 90% of the delegates against war there was not one peace sign, nor
anti-war placard. It felt at times that one was at a May Day Celebration
in Red Square. One would have thought the oldest member of the Senate would
have been given the courtesy to speak above a Jesse- pseudo minister- Jackson,
but no-there was no sign of Senator Robert Byrd---adamantly against the
war.
-
- I enjoyed Teresa Heinz merely because she was such a
refreshing change from the Stepford models we have in politics. I don't
see her cutting ribbons at supermarkets, arranging book fairs on the mall,
writing a book about a dumb ass dog, or doing the nauseating 'stand by
your lying-cheating-philandering-sexual predator husband!' Can anyone imagine
Teresa giving a sour smile at being held up to humiliation before the whole
world because when Billy ordered pizza with the works that's just what
he meant? I don't imagine that Teresa would be writing" It Takes A
Village To Raise a Child"---if her husband was sleeping around with
the whole village. I can hear the tirade in five languages that Teresa
speaks fluently . The White House would need a make-over from all the damage,
and dear little tart Monica might get a good dosing of catsup! Johnny would
be living on the beach with his surfing gear-skis-mountain bike-and medals.
-
- Mr. Edwards, was charming and endearing. The whole thing
(his speech) put one in mind of the one most likely to succeed in your
high school yearbook. Johnny was the hall monitor, crossing guard, glee
club singer, class president, and king of the prom all rolled into one.
One has the feeling that it's his wife keeping him from falling over into
glory land. It's a tempting thing this adulation-and reaching the zenith
of the American Dream. The only thing missing was an altar call but I imagine
the Democrats didn't want to steal all the thunder from the Republicans.
-
- I'm trying to imagine Mr.Bush walking across the polluted
Hudson in a flight suit holding the Ten Commandments from the Alabama courthouse
in one arm, and a megaphone in the other, calling for the heathen Democrats
to repent, and if not , damming them to hell for their slothful-liberal
thinking-unpatriotic-ways. Ashcroft will be singing the Battle Hymn of
the Republicans-while Rumsfeld will speak of the need for a Republican
Inquisition; to bring the hordes of non-Christians into the love of Jesus.
There will be no feeding of the 5000 since this is seen as a liberal flaw
in the Jesus of old---nor will there be any time taken to heal the blind-the
paralytic-the leper-or demoniacs! With upwards of 47 million without insurance
and unable to afford porterhouse price prescriptions, Bush would have no
time for keeping us safe, if he were to stop and heal all these. As one
of his campaign advisors recently remarked, "Let'em eat Prozac".
-
- Each Convention, of course, takes the time to identify
a specific member of the herd so that we all feel a part of this party
by remote control. There's Ellie-Mae-Bumpers, working at Dan's Diner trying
to keep body and soul together on five dollars a night in tips. Her fifty
year old guardsman husband is over in Iraq putting sandbags in his Humvee
to protect against bombs. Too bad he wasn't in Boston he'd have a $260,000
armored vehicle to ride around Freedom's Trail in with "kicking sound".
-
- Then, the story of Stubs Grabowski, laid off from the
steel mills is told, with the promise to Stubs to hang on-"Help is
on the way". It isn't, but it sounds good echoing out across rusted-
shuttered America. Who's fooling who? Ellie won't get near Kerry's Beacon
Hill mansion to borrow that cup of sugar or left-overs from all the parties.
With trade agreements closing down America--Right To Work For Less--no
unemployment extension (Congress was too busy voting itself a raise), Stubs
missing two fingers, working in the mills, is not, at age 55, going to
be getting gussied up and entering the world of Computer Programmer. Please!
Job retraining is another colossal joke. Besides, Stubs and his five kids
would have to pack up the U-Haul and make it to India.
-
- I guess the closest that the viewers at home came to
identifying with any of the speakers, was Max Cleland, former Senator from
Georgia. Max lost three limbs in a grenade incident in Vietnam. Apparently
this didn't qualify Max as a patriot with the Republicans. They made sure
with their legions of money, that Georgians would be brain washed into
voting Max out. It worked. Max didn't talk about sending "Hope"
he was living hope. He told of the first day he was allowed out in his
wheelchair to travel to town. The chair tipped over in the gutter and Max
with only one arm was left lying in the gutter debris. It was then that
Max promised himself that he was going to make something of his life and
he did. If the Republicans will attack someone like a Max, what citizen
will ever measure up to their warped credentials for patriotism?
-
- Somebody can chant "Help and Hope" are on the
way all they want and it's just meaningless words.
-
- You don't Conventions meandering in from your Boston
mansion, your Georgetown townhouse, your Idaho lodge, your Pennsylvania
gentleman's farm, the ranch in Texas, Camp David, the White House, or Kennebunkport;
and tell people you understand an eviction-a shut-off notice-no medical
care- and a handicapped child. You don't walk in with designer duds and
tell those dressed in K-Mart, Walmart, and Thrift Shoppe- dress up clothes
that you understand. Jesse up there shouting out his usual asinine mini-rap
of "Keep Hope Alive" should stuff it. He's been screaming that
for the past two decades and many of the homeless he told that to in Connecticut,
a decade ago, are now dead. People don't need slogans-mantras-mini-rap-and
image enhancing props. Jesse never did get the homeless guys he was rapping
to a job. He never even asked their names. Damn loud mouthed phony. God
it makes me nauseous even to write his name.
-
- Terror? When a man or woman is middle-aged, with two
or three kids, no job, no food, no medical coverage, and living in a town
with 40% unemployment, they're not biting their nails worried about Al-Qaeda
shutting off their meter. When they have to have cash on the line for that
gall-bladder operation, $ 90.00 for a child's prescription, they're not
thinking of how much the Arabs hate us, and how jealous they are of our
luxuriant living, malls, and box stores. With all these mutant Ninja Warriors,
done up in full body armor, F-16s, helicopters, dogs, armored tanks, etc.,
you'd think someone could spot 2.7 million jobs leaving in the past three
years?
-
- Mr. Kerry said he'd get an Attorney General who would
respect the Constitution. Yet outside the Fleet Center, free speech, the
voice of the people; was being penned-in, walled-in, threatened, and wrapped
with razor wire. This was hardly a good beginning in championing people's
rights. Then there are the dirty tricks pulled by Democrats across the
land on Mr. Nader to keep him off the ballot. What happened to
- "Only in America can a poor boy grow up to be President"?
No-Mr.Nader, proves you can't. Not unless you are selected and chosen by
the money people of either party.
-
- "There is nothing more common in history than for
oppressed people to rise up against their masters and, at great cost in
treasure and blood, throw off the old regime, only to discover that they
have replaced it with one that is just as bad or worse. That is because
it is easy to know what we dislike about a political system but not so
easy to agree on what would be better. It is the habit of men to focus
on personalities rather than principles. They have thought that the problem
was with the man who rules not with the system that sustains him. So they
merely replace one despot for another, think that, somehow the new one
will be more wise and benevolent. It is necessary to focus on the system
not on personalities. It is important to know what we are for and it is
to know what we are against. "
-
- "With so much talk about defending freedom who can
stand up and define what that means? For some, freedom means merely not
being in jail. Who can define the essence of personal liberty? Who can
look you in the eye and say "This I believe and I believe it for this
reason and this reason and this reason also." The world is dying for
something to believe in, a statement of principles that leaves no room
for misunderstanding; a creed that everyone of good faith toward their
fellow human beings can accept with clarity of mind and strength of resolve.
There is an old saying that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall
for anything. " G.Edward Griffin
-
- Mr. Griffin asks us through the reading of his Creed
of Freedom, to remind ourselves, of what it is we believe in. Are we to
be led around like cattle and told by mannequin TV plastic people that
we must vote for the lesser of two evils..think about this. Who says so?
A vote is all important and it shouldn't be wasted on greater or lesser
evil..there's no such thing. Both parties are for war-the Patriot (annihilation)
Act-more troops-and the usual every four year mantra of education and decent
medical care. If the country were turned back to the people instead of
being run by soulless-corporate-hucksters building a global plantation
we might solve these issues.
-
- The Creed of Freedom
-
- INTRINSIC NATURE OF RIGHTS
-
- I believe that only individuals have rights, not the
collective group; that these rights are intrinsic to each individual, not
granted by the state; for if the state has the power to grant them, it
also has the power to deny them, and that is incompatible with personal
liberty.
-
- I believe that a just government derives its power solely
from the governed. Therefore the state must never presume to do anything
beyond what individual citizens also have the right to do. Otherwise, the
state is a power unto itself and becomes the master instead of the servant
of society.
-
- SUPREMACY OF THE INDIVIDUAL
-
- I believe that one of the greatest threats to freedom
is to allow any group, no matter its numeric superiority , to deny the
rights of the minority; and that one of the primary functions of just governments
is to protect each individual from the greed and passion of the majority.
-
- FREEDOM OF CHOICE
-
- I believe that desirable social and economic objectives
are better achieved by voluntary action than by coercion of law. I believe
that social tranquility and brotherhood are better achieved by tolerance,
persuasion, and the power of good example than by coercion of law. I believe
that these in need are better served by charity, which is the giving on
one's own money, than by welfare, which is the giving of other people's
money through coercion of law.
-
- EQUALITY UNDER LAW
-
- I believe that all citizens should be equal under law,
regardless of their national origin, race, religion, gender, education,
economic status, life style, or political opinion. Likewise, no class should
be given preferential treatment, regardless of the merit or popularity
of its cause. To favor one class over another is NOT equality under law.
-
- PROPER ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
-
- I believe that the proper role of government is negative,
not positive, defensive, not aggressive. It is to protect, not to provide;
for if the state is granted the power to provide for some, it must also
be able to take from others, and once that power is granted, there are
those who will seek it for their advantage. It ALWAYS leads to legalized
plunder and loss of FREEDOM. If government is powerful enough to give us
everything we want, it is also powerful enough to take from us everything
we have. Therefore, the proper function of government is to protect the
lives, liberty and property of its citizens, nothing more. That government
is best which governs least.
-
- THE THREE COMMANDMENTS OF FREEDOM
-
-
- 1. Thou shall not sacrifice the rights of any individual
or minority for the benefit of the greater number.
- 2. Thou shall not use coercion for any purpose except
to protect human life, liberty or property.
- 3. Thou shall not endorse any law that does not apply
to all citizens equally. Creed of Freedom-author G.Edward Griffin
-
-
- Something is tragically wrong in a nation that puts people
out of work by sending their jobs overseas. Something has run amuck when
powerful lobbying groups of HMOs, Pharmaceuticals, Insurance, Oil, Gas,
Timber, Agric-business etc., are given the solicitous attentions of our
elected legislators and senators. Something's rotten in Denmark when our
elected officials are enjoying the medical and health coverage that was
meant for the people. Seems, when they put things in place for themselves,
they spared no expense or coverage. And why should they? They made sure
we'd be picking up the tab on their premiums.little wonder we can't afford
our own medical insurance.
-
- You don't tell people that we're protecting freedom by
walling off and penning in visitors, to Boston the birthplace of liberty.
Have these people gone completely bonkers. Hello, snipers on the rooftops
of historic buildings? It just gets more foolish by the day with millions
upon millions of dollars being spent, to search people with puppets, union
workers, kids from school, bus drivers, housewives, etc. NO-this isn't
protecting freedom this is about abolishing freedom. When armed military
are on our country's streets, that's a Police State. You can dress it up
and call it anything you want---but when citizens are coerced, searched,
stopped, penned, and gassed; because a bunch of well paid, well insured,
bunch of lackeys, and kiss ass politicians couldn't do one thing right,
PROTECT THE PEOPLE, that's a police state. Trillions of dollars have been
spent on planes-tanks-guns-standing armies-bunker war rooms-Daisy Cutters-cluster
bombs-missiles-smart bombs and alphabet agencies stumbling all over themselves.
Thanks to four mothers (widows of 9-11) we got a Commission (such as it
was). But we wouldn't even have had that if not for women marching to Washington
and demanding some answers. Where were our elected officials? Where are
they now with these jokester findings? What were the findings? Why who
would have guessed- they need more money, a new CZAR, and another layer
of incompetence/
-
- The Warren Commission ala 2004! Same script just dusted
off. It was Oswald-the goofy little guy in the book depository, a single
bullet and a President dead. This time around its thousands dead; including
the police, firemen, and emergency workers, who rushed to save their fellow
citizens. After the dust had settled, the multitudes crushed, President
Bush took up a bullhorn to play courageous leader, beside the real heroes,
the men and women of New York. Now that the cameras are gone and these
heroes need decent pay, there's not a megaphone or politician to be found.
They should have pushed him, (Bush) megaphone and all, right off that mound
of debris. And now-thousands dead, a disaster of a war, states going bankrupt
to fund all this, nobody gets fired, and WE become the enemy; searched
and stopped. I wasn't working at the FBI-CIA-Pentagon-National Security
etc. Hell if Sandy Berger could walk out of the National Archives building
with his pants stuffed with documents and Los Alamos has been looted, why
the hell are work-a-day citizens being searched?
-
- It's the system that is totally broken and no new polished
Laurel and Hardy show is going to have things any different. Is it freedom
we're protecting or the wizard behind the curtain? Time we looked. Do I
hear an AMEN?
|
