The End of Days

I do not believe in the "End of days" as biblical prophecy, but I do believe in self-fulfilling prophecy, which mankind has become extremely talented at. Religious fanatics have been waiting literally for CENTURIES for the son of God to return to Earth from his extended vacation to wreak havoc on all those non-believers, which include a huge chunk of the population of this planet. Every decade that ends without his reappearance only adds to their frustration, and life here on Earth gets more and more complicated as these people increasingly seek to take matters into their own hands to FORCE the matter. Yes, these followers of Christ are so full of hate, intolerance, and an eagerness to see their neighbors burn in hell that they actively form political blocks that have no purpose other than to derail any attempts by the rest of us to just get along with each other and instill any kind of social justice for all people. I think it is so fucking sad that the death penalty, the merging of religion (THEIR religion, of course) and state, and the denial of any kind of decent life for the lower rungs of our society thru predatory capitalism are all hallmarks of the mindset of the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian sect, in opposition to just about everything Jesus was supposed to have taught them.

As of January 1st, my health care premiums rose again, and my benefits got worse, as they have steadily over the last ten years or so. And even though I am "covered", any real medical emergency will probably cause us to become homeless due to all the costs which are still our responsibility. If I am ever diagnosed with cancer, I doubt I will have any real incentive to fight it, since my life, thanks to the impending defeat of healthcare reform by the conservatives, will essentially be over with anyway. How is your average American wage earner supposed to repay THAT kind of debt? Very few of them do, and the horror stories continue to mount, while the pawns of corporate America chant "death panels" and "communist healthcare". President Obama was supposed to be the breath of fresh air this country desperately needed to bring us back to our senses, but even his own party has become so inept at fighting the propaganda of the corporate shills and religions right that they can't even get a Democrat elected to Senator Ted Kennedy's vacant seat! What the far right has done to this country is only going to be exacerbated by a left wing that seems to be in the same pockets as the conservatives were.

Never in my life have I seen our political system so hamstrung by special interests and a sense of every-man-for-himself. I loved my country and I served it, yet my fellow Americans continually embarrass me with their apparent lack of empathy, common sense, or critical thinking skills. We don't want to pay taxes, yet we expect our roads to pave themselves, our children to have good teachers teach them for free, and our food brought to our tables safe to eat without any kind of government regulation. We are all hell-bent on not having to pay for our neighbors healthcare, yet there we are filling up our emergency rooms because our health insurance was dropped or our jobs were sent overseas. We want freedom, not for all, but from responsibility for anyone other than ourselves. In effect, we eat our young, we soil our nests, and our favorite game is now American Roulette (the difference between that and the Russian version is that we leave ONE chamber empty).

My fellow Americans, you shame me. You have no idea how good you had it. You have been so afraid of socialism that you have traded democracy for corporate totalitarianism. You are really no different from the "Red" China......corporate America OWNS your sorry ass, they just don't have to admit it. They will raise your rates, lower your wages, take away your jobs, and you will continue to bend over and take it, because you think Jesus is coming back to build one great big golden shopping mall that you can all drive your platinum Hummers to every day for all eternity. Meanwhile, all of us "evil" people who dare suggest that the constitution calls for the separation of church and state will all burn in hell for that same eternity, especially those of us who joined unions in an effort to have decent jobs at decent wages and live the American "dream". The only hope I can think of for this battered country of ours is that there really will be a rapture, so that your sorry obstructionist asses are gotten out of our way and we can save this country AND our damaged planet.

But, knowing humans as I do, I hold out very little hope for sanity to regain a foothold here. These truly are the "End of days", at least for this once great country of ours, and probably for all of the Earth, as the effects of global warming take their toll and the human race goes the way of all those creatures we delivered onto extinction. Jesus told you to "love your neighbor as you love yourselves".......only you must truly be self-loathing if this is how you love them.

Unless you are a Masochist, this might interest you......

Romancing the Gun

Although I do not have a membership in the NRA, I DO own a hand gun and believe that, at least in present circumstances, people who possess the totally logical desire to defend themselves should have the right to own a firearm or two.
That being said, I do not love my gun. I do not love my toaster or my coffee maker (ok, yea, maybe the coffee maker) nor do I own a life size doll that I have any particular affection for. My gun is a tool, no different from my rake, shovel, hammer, or electric grill. I use it for self defense, period. I HAVE used it for that purpose, taking out a five foot long rattlesnake that was threatening my goats, but that is the only time this weapon has been fired in anger in the three decades that I have owned it. It hasn't even had more than two boxes of ammo total fired through it. No, I do not LOVE my gun, but I consider it a necessary evil and that is the only reason I own it.

However, there are many Americans who DO love their guns. They love their guns with a passion that is downright scary. Some of them own an entire arsenal, enough firepower to arm a small banana republic. Many own simply a small weapon for concealed carry, and then there are those who own fully automatic weapons that could shred an elephant in nothing flat. THESE are the people who make me uncomfortable, and who make a very real statement about the human condition……...

We love to destroy things, living things included.

Many of us, those of us who are "civilized" and "God-fearing" especially, will proclaim to possess an overriding love of family, friends, and man in general. Our lives will be spent being "good people", proclaiming the love of Christ and maybe even doing "good works". And yet, Many of these same people will support the death penalty, not strictly out of social practicality, but for vengeance sake, or the ultimate punishment, despite their deities admonition that "vengeance is MINE" and that judgement is reserved to the creator. Yes, these are traits so easily ignored by people who want you to believe they are somehow better than those "other" people. And, many of these same people own guns, hunt with guns, shoot watermelons with guns, have one hidden on themselves and all around their house, and are always lusting after the newest caliber to be brought to market for their bang-bang pleasure. Guns are designed for one thing, and one thing only: to kill. No, they were not invented to blow apart watermelons. No, they were not designed to punch holes in paper targets within the safety of a firing range. No, they were not designed for anything other than to kill animals (one of those necessary evils that is questionable in the era of supermarkets and industrial meat production) and people. And boy can they do THAT job better than anything! They kill men, women, AND children, and even their pets. Some are designed to inflict mortal damage on one person at a time, while others are quite capable of taking out a whole classroom within a minute. THAT is what guns were designed to do, and if you love guns, then you love what they are capable of doing. In my mind, that makes you purely human, the most dangerous animal on the face of this Earth.

Again, here is my license: I own a gun, and I have owned more than one in my lifetime. I have hunted with guns AND archery equipment. I have used my gun for what I acquired it for; self-defense. When it comes to down to me vs a threat, human or otherwise, I come down on the side of ME and MINE. I do not lust after nor do I wish to have one of these encounters. I do not WANT to take a life. And I find no need to empty boxes of bullets into targets, imagining those targets as some sort of threat to me. I have taken whatever target practice was necessary to operate my pistol to it's maximum effect, and that's it. Does that make me some sort of namby-pamby liberal wimp? You think so? Then come visit me in the middle of the night without knocking. I won't be thinking I'm Rambo but I guarantee YOU will within thirty seconds of breaking into my castle.

I do not love my gun.

Why do you?

Eyes Wide What?

When I was young
I was full of vim and vigor
confused though I was
as to where I belonged in this world
then I won a few battles
and lost a few wars
and ended up in limbo
where expectations
meet incredulous reality
This is not the future I was promised
this is not the day I reckoned
and every ounce of faith I had
in the very idea of humanity
has been poured into a glass
of surrender and apathy
and consumed with my rum and coke
I thought I knew what love was
but all I know for sure anymore
is what I could and have
been capable of
simply by virtue of being human
this mixture of shame, pride, and eyes wide open
now burning me from within
once so guilty of judgement
I now weigh myself and find me wanting
once desperate to imagine myself as good
now only grateful not to be simply evil
or am I?

Not Quite YET........

The anal truth of the matter is that 2010 is NOT the beginning of a new decade, but instead is the beginning of the final year of THIS decade, the "oughts" as we have been calling them. So, you see, technically, the next decade will not actually begin until the first of 2011. You've all jumped the gun. I'll join all of you in welcoming in the new decade when it actually begins, but for now, I am just hoping that the crash and burn which was 2009 will not turn into the collapse of civilization which will surely occur if Republicans continue to obstruct every common sense effort we put into repairing the damage that their party and Cheney's puppet DUBYA inflicted on this once powerful country of ours. Oh, sure, we can kill the villain of the day from an aerial drone thousands of miles away, but we can't keep hard working, honest, and bent-over-and-screwed Americans employed or in their homes. The power structure of YESTERDAY continues to spew vitriol at our not-quite-white-enough President, despite the fact that so far he has demonstrated a grace under pressure that would have destroyed any of his lily-white predecessors, save perhaps Kennedy, and could actually advance this country into the 21st century (at last) if only the party of NO would just go home and suck their thumbs. I am not holding my breath this year expecting any miraculous improvements, because government of the democratic persuasion advances like stop-and-go traffic rather than the freeway we would dearly love to be driving on. And, until we as Americans stop eating our young, we will steadily head the way of the Roman Empire, rotting from within.

Happy New Year.