In A Democracy, The People get The Government They Deserve

Alexis de Tocqueville? He coined that title? I was always lead to believe that Jefferson said it but after a quick Google before starting this blog I'm seeing all sorts of authors...from Shakespeare to Hunter S Thompson, and now on further Google research, Ayn Rand. I was just talking to a friend and he said it's like trying to ask who quoted...Pass me the mashed potatoes!
But it has been repeated in my thoughts as of late. And I got to say that I am kind of relieved to come upon it. It justifies the angst and anger in my soul, seeing our elected government officials cave into the corporate junta and eradicate the public option clause from the health care bill. Or when the President of The United States calls the nations bank CEO's on the carpet of the oval office, some don't even show, the ones that do look at their watches and shuffle around as if inquiring if The President is quite through. And hey, Mister President, What are you going to do about our massive year end bonuses to our cooperate heads, and the interest rates and general fleecing of the people. After all...It's going on unopposed...Hey! We're going to keep doing it and there ain't nothing you can do about it. And by the way...I got your bonus right here, Mister Prez!...Or that is how it appears to me anyway. This after we the tax payer saved them from total destruction last year on a massive bailout that they have started to pay back and I guess they have a right to do what ever they want...or at least that's the neo-con view because...the business of America is business, I guess...now what tight jawed chuckle head coined that one?
But...The truth is that the business of America is business. Even if that business has become so huge and powerful that the government under which it operates is no longer in control of how this business conducts itself. This is a direct result of republicanism which rose into power twenty-nine years ago with the deregulation games and a green light for corporate megalomania that has gone pretty much unregulated now for thirty years.
Essentially the neo-conservative point of view seems to be that taxation is wrong, government out of our lives (unless it's abortion or gay rights, and then it's government all over us like a cheap suit) and turn it over to the "private sector" so they can tax the pants off us all and they won't have to answer for any of it. And if you think that we are not taxed by the private sector...have you checked your health benefit co-payments lately?...or how about your credit card interest rates? And those taxes don't pay for infrastructure upkeep or national defense, social security or anything...it's just money out of our pockets and into their profits.
But the times are changing...and something I predicted seems to be taking shape in the beginning of this century (now wasn't I prophetic?). That government would eventually be absorbed by corporate enterprise and we would become a corporate feudal society paying homage to the corporate state.
And what of that? Well...the scary thing is that they really have no one to answer to and seem to do what ever they want with little regard for the well being of the people (that's you and I) And this becomes apparent when we hear of people being dropped by insurance companies when they become sick and in need of the insurance. It's all profit motivated, everyone knows this including the conservative factions that support this private sector philosophy.
I remember the Bush administration pushing for the privatization of social security, imagine that! The trouble with this whole idea of privatization of government is that a government...a democracy, the government is answerable to the people (that's us folks) who vote for the legislators and I know that it's been bad lately (mainly due to corporate lobbying which have put so many legislators into their pockets) but to a certain degree it still works. In a corporate run government...I don't think that would really be the reality.
And it all comes down to that deadliest of the seven deadly sins...greed...on a massive scale...on such a scale that it could very well bring down the whole fabric of our civilization before these guys are through. And if you think I've gone over the top with this...think it over.
And what of us...the people...the folk...always the ones always caught in the middle of these power plays...rise up? Overthrow a stagnated and divided legislation motivated by greed and run into the ground by inertia? A revolution? Doesn't seem likely, not as long as Two and a Half Men reruns still place relevance in our lives and Mickie D's still has two for one dollar on Wednesday.
Don't get me wrong...I love the two for one on Wednesdays and Two and a Half Men I never miss. I guess when the Tao suggested that one keep the bellies full and the mind ignorant he must of had a point...But I shutter when I think of all these people, sitting in their living rooms with hamburgers and television shows and their apathy and uncanny ability to accept what is completely against their best interests suddenly comes to roost on their front lawn and they get the government they deserve.

Happy New Year
- Thank you patient readers

Holiday In Uganda?

I was recently scanning the news on the web. I like to read the Huffington Post, the Christian Science Monitor and for a look from the right, The Drudge Report. There seems to be a lot of news out of Uganda because of this outlawing of homosexuality and the administration of the death penalty for anyone caught in the act and stiff prison time for family members and friends of said homos for giving them protection. As an American, a liberal minded gent of said democracy having an IQ of over fifty and a gay man myself, I find the whole idea repugnant and not a little scary. Of course we as Americans can click our tongues and say that isn't it a shame and what is it with those Africans anyway and order another cocktail.
I'm not saying everybody does this but there are an awful lot of...not just Americans, but gay Americans who do. After all, American gays are petitioning for the right to marry, not to keep from facing a firing squad because of who they are...at least not at this date and time. We live under a relatively benevolent and liberal system of government. No matter who's administration it is it's not Uganda and for this I am grateful...kind of grateful...kind of weary too.
I had a very dear friend in California who used to say that we...Out American gays are the last populous in this country who are legally hunted. This does not mean that we are tracked down and shot like a wild bore although if you get into the wrong parts our deep dark interior with your pants down...well!...Remember Mathew Shepard. And it happens pretty much everywhere but maybe not to the extent of the slaughter of Mathew Shepard out on the Wyoming range land.
And it still prevails. There seems to be a very anchored dislike for homosexuality in most cultures and I am trying to understand it but not quite. Because the ugly truth of the matter is...a lot of people seem to do it at one time or another. and a lot of people seem to do it a lot. And it is hard to document because one cannot document something that someone refuses to ever admit, and yet...
Now I understand the whole lifestyle problem that the moralists of our American Society frame us gays with. And looking back into my own younger years in California I can see their point. It was hedonistic and I have to confess, fun, I thought it fun and make no apologies for it. But that is my own opinion. It was hedonistic, lets just say that. But we are talking about the 70's here. We are talking about the 70's in America and I was hanging around heterosexuals too back then and it was pretty shocking if I can say so. I mean gays you would expect such behavior, but heterosexuals? Not to mention the whole urban punk scene that was going on in the cities and that defies explanation. So it is really unfair to target gays solely with this promiscuous title. And besides, with the gradual homogenization in certain parts of the country with gay couples adopting children and moving to the burbs and two cars and on the golf course and all that normal stuff going on, the whole wild party scene seems to be on the wane. And if anybody has been to a gay bar as of late you see an aging population sitting at the bar having shots of schnapps and listening to 70's disco music, reminiscing about the hedonistic good old days. Young gays just don't go to gay bars anymore. That too is getting homogenized.
But it's an act, it's a sexual relationship! Because a person has a sexual relationship with his or her own sex does not mean him or her is necessarily gay. They may have had a homosexual relationship, but does that make them gay? And visa versa. One can see the gray area there. And in Uganda they want to execute people for this act. In Egypt they want to lock you up for it. God only knows what they do to you in Iran for it. And China? In Mississippi? I know it's worth one's safety in Jamaica to be outwardly gay. And yet it goes on...this abomination of God, this gay agenda, this act of love, this act of lust. Whatever!
I have always been a supporter of the 2nd amendment. I reserve the right to protect myself as I see fit from intrusion. And I hold it sacred when I hear the hatred publicly spouted by certain churches and institutions right here in the USA. That is why I never really identified myself as a liberal. Left wing, socialist perhaps, but not liberal. When I hear The Reverend Phelps and his God Hates Fags I say to myself...hey! They're talking about me! And I think...yeah...we are the last people in this land where it is legal and condoned to hunt down. And I bet you the Pope in Rome would agree. We are the last hunted humans indeed.
....Gee Santa! I'd like a Winchester for Christmas this year. Maybe some ammo too.
Going overboard? I don't know. Some of the religious homophobes seem to be way overboard, and yet tolerated.
It really does not matter what Christianity says about Homosexuality, we have separation of church and state here...thank God! It really does not matter what Islamic law states either, it does not matter what anyone really thinks. But the democratic process fails when the majority get to vote on whether to take someone else's basic right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness away from law abiding citizens because the majority happens to think that God disapproves, or they happen to find that lifestyle not to their taste. There has to be checks and balances on democracy to keep this form of government from the take over of mob rule.
Uganda? Probably not. A right winged takeover of our governmental process, hope not. Taking away my basic rights because I choose to love someone of my own sex?...What was it Charlton Heston said at the NRA convention before he went senile?...something about cold dead hands?

And a new Idea on the way to Demascus?

Greetings to you - I have created this blog to use as I guess the billions of others use it for. Because my thoughts and ideas are relevant. That I have just as much right to express myself as anyone else. So big deal! I must confess I find this idea depressing and a bit dehumanising. It's kind of the way I look at the whole computer age. I'm blogging, I'm getting my opinions and prose and poetry out for whoever wants to read it and so I can feel secure that there are at least 700 million people doing the same. So much for a solitary cry in the wilderness.

OK! I am a bit grandiose, I want to be special. I want to be Norman Mailer, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, William Burroughs all rolled in one. I want the bored insomniac sitting at his computer in the middle of the night to stumble on my blog and and say...'Wow! Now there's a thinker, there's one of the great minds of our age!' And I'll end up with an honorary degree from Harvard for writing dirty stories with big words and a townhouse on the upper east side of Manhattan. Grandiose enough?

Well why not...without an audacious imagination why would I even bother to write in the first place unless I was an editor or writing science textbooks or something like that. I have always been a dreamer, I have been a lot of things, kind of like a an adventurer but I never really went anywhere far, maybe if you consider California far, or Vermont far off. But does one have to travel far off to be an adventurer? What of the mind?
I have done a lot of stuff in my lifetime and met a lot of people too. Some really amazing, some really not amazing. Some really amazing but boring, some not so amazing but interesting. Some smart but unlikeable, some dumber than a stick and delightful company. And visa a verse with so many variations that I might just have something to write about in this blog.
It's just this nagging feeling that it's such a mass product, this blogging thing. That I am just one of the many millions who have something to say. l once heard that opinions were like assholes, everybody has one and my opinions, my ideas and stories etc are part of a mass production of human input. Like it was manufactured on some assembly line in China or something. It's like...who really gives a rats ass if I think that the Orwellian prophecy has come to pass. Just one more schmuck voicing his opinion because he's got Google and has an electronic soap box to shout from.
Know what? Screw all this self importance! I'll do it for me. I will tell all my friends and acquaintances that I am writing a blog and I'll just write it anyway. And I'll read it!
Just the same I hope that somebody reads it.
And I have a prayer; God forbid that I have opinions on every goddamn thing!