This Country is Nuts!
By Dave Lindorff
Okay, I have to vent here. We all get a little crazy sitting alone
at our keyboards in this business, and it's finally gotten to me.
I know there are serious signs of a complete mental breakdown in the
US, with polls reporting that millions of people are actually excited
at having a low-rent religious fanatic who consistently mispronounces
pundit as "pundint" (shades of Dubya!), pilfers state funds for her
family's personal use, lies about her alleged opposition to Washington
pork, claims the bloody war in Iraq is "God's will," forces her
17-year-old daughter to make a momentary mistake into a lifetime one by
marrying the kid who got her pregnant, and refers to blacks as "sambo"
and to Alaska's indigenous people as "arctic arabs," running for vice
president on the ticket with a man who is a walking medical disaster
waiting to happen.
These are probably the same people who still give the worst
president in the history of the Union a 30 percent approval rating, who
keep watching reality TV shows (perhaps thinking they're real), and who
still think having 180,000 US troops indiscriminately slaughtering
Iraqis, Afghanis and Pakistanis is making the US "safe."
But right now I want to talk about Homeland Security and the US Postal Service, two small examples of domestic insanity.
I tried to mail a book to my father last Saturday for his 86th
birthday. In order to make sure it would get there by Tuesday, I sent
it in one of those flat-rate Priority Mail envelopes--the ones that
promise two-day delivery. It cost me $4.80 (five 90-cent stamps, one
24-cent stamp and two 3-cent stamps). I drop the little package off
after hours into the mail slot in the lobby of my local post office.
Yesterday, my envelope was in my mailbox, though, with a blue
sticker attached headed: "Important Customer Information: We regret
that your mail was not collected or is being returned to you due to
heightened security requirements. All mail that bears postage stamps
and weighs more than 13 ounces MUST be taken by the customer to a
retail service associate at a Post Office."
Okay, so dad won't get his present on his birthday.
I called the local PO to ask what was going on, and was told that
any package over 13 ounces with stamps has to be handed in person to a
counter employee.
"With stamps?" I asked. "What if I had worked at a company and had a
metered stamp put on it and then dropped it in a mailbox or mail slot?"
"Then it would go," I was told. "Because we'd have a meter number to trace who mailed it."
Let's see. The meter would trace the package to whatever big company
I might have worked at, but I don't see how that would help them trace
it to the actual mailer.
Now, what about if I brought my package to the counter? Would it be
opened and checked? No, I was told. I would simply be asked by the
counter clerk whether the package contained any banned substances, like
bodily fluids, liquids or bombs. If I said no, it would be accepted for
mailing. ("I know this sounds silly," the postal worker on the phone
told me, "but I don't make the rules. It's Homeland Security.")
Wow. The Post Office and the Department of Homeland Security are
sure keeping our mail trucks and our airlines safe with this clever
policy.
I mean, we can be sure that those stoopid Ayrabs wouldn't think to
put a metered stamp on the bomb they send through the mails. And that
asking at the counter thing, that would sure catch anyone trying to
slip some deadly substance into the mail stream. The clerks are
probably trained to look for certain kinds of markers of suspicious
behavior--a tic, a shifty look, or some reticence in the answer given.
Right.
So this is what it has come to in America. We're ready to put an
refugee from the "Jerry Springer" show a missed heartbeat away from the
White House, and we keep our mail and our aircraft industry safe from
terrorists by returning (through the mail, mind you!!) packages that
are left in a mailbox if they have postage stamps on them.
Dad, if you're reading this, I'm sorry your present is going to
arrive late. Take it up with Mike Chertoff, the guy who made sure
everyone got out of New Orleans alive when that city was hit by
Hurricane Katrina.
Is this a great country or what?
_____________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006
and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
- dlindorff's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version- Send to friend
Join us & contribute
Proud members of the Democratic Party
Copyright 2006 Democrats.com. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy
I agree with all you say!
I agree with all you say! What sense does all this make? People are all fired up about someone they know nothing about and only see the "beauty" of this person. Their perception of beauty is shallow and twisted.
Then there is this regime, in place for eight years, slowly bringing this great nation down to their lowest level of sleaze. Opportunists run in large herds in this administration. It's no wonder they picked someone else who is just like them. Their perception is that they are mavericks too. They don't realize there are plenty of people that don't think so.
I would like to have faith that by the middle of October the smoke and mirrors will go away and reveal the reality of the situation.
I felt that way 4 years ago...
The 2004 campaign drove me nuts. I felt nauseous all the time, wondering how the supposedly model democracy could vote again for Bush.
But I knew that, even after Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, tons of lies and insults to the values that built America, there was no way America could kick Dubya and Lobby Dick out of the White House.
It was hopeless from the start : Democrats started their campaign 2 years later (Rove / Mehlman mobilizing each county as soon as the WTC was down), and the few moderates daring to speak up couldn't be heard while those Weapons of Mass Disinformation were carpet bombing the country.
This time is America's most important trial in History. And this time, it is not only about getting rid of the worst team at the worst place at the worst moment, but also about putting the best man at the best place at the best moment.
I thought that the people of America learned the lesson but look at these polls ! Look at 40 million Americans watch a O'Reilly with lipstick ressuscite an ancient, white haired puppet !
I'm flabbergasted by such blindness. The whole country seems to have lost their bearings.
What will you tell your children and grand-children ? There was nothing I could to to prevent my country from drowning down the pit of infamy ? My country was fooled and humiliated, and I let it happen again ?
Don't know where else to write this...so here it is....
I was watching the HINT channel last night about the revolutionary war....It was back to back shows and I finally had to force myself to go to bed.
I am trying to educate myself in the arena of politics/political history; much of it I missed in high school because of personal reasons. However, I am able to now involve myself and want to learn as much as I can about our history and our present circumstances.
My question is/observation is (and please tell me if I am way off base, here), is that as I was watching these shows and learning about the political climate of that time - it seemed eerily familiar to what is happening today. Does history seem to be repeating itself? Are we any more free or have much more say than the early colonists who gave their lives so we could be free from all forms of tyranny? Is being told that we're free no more than veiled lip service? Are We the People really the ones in charge? Separation of church and state seems to be falling by the wayside; taxation is out of control; the rich get richer while I find myself working my rear-end off and not getting any further ahead.
I am not ashamed to call myself an American. I am proud of my country (at least what it is supposed to stand for) and its' people. What I am ashamed of is the sad state of our government and the majority of those in charge.
As I wrote earlier, I wasn't sure where else to write this, so here it is and I'd like feedback.
Thank you for your time and input!
On taxes peace4all
(A bit of a repeated but relevant post to follow).
There would be no deficit IF we taxed as we taxed before. There would be a surplus to spend on the underpaid: 90% of all Americans by my reckoning.
And I might add that there would be ZERO breaks on the economy just like there was when we did tax that upper bracket and had 1 buck a gallon gas.
Wars are fought to defend a Nations wealth. Folks should pay in proportion to the wealth they need defending. Perhaps a surcharge above that in fact because they can NOT provide the shear number of bodies needed to defend that portion of wealth. Do that and all is well again. Trivial in fact.
If one fears that Paris Hilton will cease in her labors because of an income reduced by those taxes and instead become a welder then yeah I guess one would also have to fear that breaks would be put on our Economy. I would add however that those same folks did with less before and we with more and everything was damned nice ;)
I might add that America has always been about balance. We do not relish mob rule (Communism) nor rule by the Monarch/Monopoly or Aristocracy.
Even Conservatives vote for anti monopoly laws, time limited patent laws, etc. They break monopolies to spread the wealth around to an Aristocracy. I make an argument here for nothing different in kind only in scope. Democrats are for upper tiers paying for services rendered (defense) with the effect of higher incomes for the vast majority.
Anyone with large sums of money are insulated from the feedback of the market. They need not labor. They need not innovate. Their wealth will propel them every forward with ever greater power to manipulate.
All that must be allowed under the banner of freedom, EXCEPT where it infringes on others. I state explicitly where it does above.
I bother with all this because this Nation will not come back into balance until we have a knock down drag out debate over the issue of wealth/power/taxation. The issue, as framed by the Right, is missing elements. Some I allude to above.
Well that is a start of a conversation. This post is horribly long so I apologize and will not comment on your other points. Glad to have you with us.
Jim
Thanks, Jim, for your input.
Thanks, Jim, for your input. I greatly appreciate it and am well on my way to being further educated and more active!
Your Welcome...
...and as my Dad use to say:
"you learn every day and you die dumb"
;)
The condition of our country
I have come to the blogs here for the first time. I am glad to have done. I agree, the country has become crazed while sinking low on intellectual capacity. A terrible combination. Right now I am uncertain about the election. On the one hand, I become enthusiastic about Obama not because I love his politics (though any more progressive and he'd never gain the White House) but because I admire his intelligence, his ability to think and deliberate, to hear many viewpoints, to hold in his mind a number of differing ideas which for most people would be canceling each other out, and for his temperance.
As for his oratory and charisma, those are marvelous political tools. I want a president that we can look at and be proud of as a representative of what we as a people can be. If the naysayers and the small minded only knew enough to appreciate things and people who are (not better, but) better prepared than they, we'd be in clover.
Alas, it is not so. In addition to the weak intellectual capabilities of so many, it seems people have also become disconnected from their inborn capacity for assessing others' character. The moment Palin walked on stage and spoke, I knew she was bad news. "Hostile," I said. Angry. Small minded. And that was before I knew anything at all about her that could be called information, or objective in nature.<
span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; font-family: Verdana"> What this required of me was to pay attention to my (no deadened) feelings -- the ones with which we are all endowed but which we are forced by family and culture to ignore because it bothers others. Well, I'd sooner have a lot of feelings going around than the current administration, the Treasury Department and corporate government.
Lastly (and oh, I could go on), it helps me to remember that the GOP folks are ignorant and small-minded but are not all dumb. It has been a masterful takeover. I often think about the language as we now use it. (Language and thinking are inextricably linked, so keep that in mind).
No one much minded paying taxes some years ago, until we began to hear "tax burden," over and over. After a while, it seemed we were paying too much. See how that works?
Another: "Pro Life." Not so. We are all pro life. Only the ones who say they are, are actually pro birth. They don't think twice about killing thousands of swarthy people elsewhere. Never mind the number of de facto abortions caused by killing pregnant mothers, poisoning the water and air and many generations of children in the future.
Of course, there are many more. I'd like to get back to calling people by their party affiliation. The Republicans are getting away with an alias: "The Right." Is that fair or accurate? No. Our brains do not make any distinction between that kind of "right" and the other kind, that is, "not wrong." I don't like to collude with their cowardly hiding behind an alias, especially an alias that reeks of deception. Similarly, the Democrats should call themselves Democrats, not "Liberal," which they are not, and which name scares the small minded among us. Nor should they call themselves "progressive," because they are not that, either. Some of us out here in the hinterlands are, but we know better than to try to get elected to anything. A Democrat is a Democrat. The party is over unless they breathe life back into it and that's that.
Docbets, you are entirely
Docbets, you are entirely correct about the Republicans' use of "framing" to change the meaning of words over time. The current crop of neoconservatives are neither conservative, nor pro-life -- they are neoconservative faux-Republicans who despise the "restrictions" placed on their greed by the Constitution.
Sadly, the same can be said of many in the Democratic Party. They are neither Liberal, nor pro-choice -- they are DLC "neoliberal" faux-Democrats who feed from the same corporate banquet table as the neoconservatives.
Most middle-Americans (the "silent majority?") are socially Liberal, and fiscally Conservative, and that is what made this country strong for over a century. However, the picture of the rugged, "God-fearing," and helpful-neighbor American has morphed into a timid, self-righteous, and hate-your-neighbor American.
What has happened over the past few decades, beginning with the Newt Gingrich/Ronald Reagan group of neoconservatives, is nothing short of a move to corporate Fascism. Our Constitutional way of government, and our American Freedoms, are in grave peril.
The Constitution of the United States of America (as amended) is one of the most "Liberal" documents ever written, and has served us "failed colonials" well over our short history. Should the neoconservative, corporate-fascists prevail in their attempts to tear down the very fabric of what made us the greatest experiment in democracy ever seen, we have only ourselves to blame.
Liberal? Hell yes I'm an American Liberal, and damned proud of it.
Moreover, the words hide
Moreover, the words hide (though not very well) the truth. William Kristol wrote yesterday in the NYTimes that he considers the religious "worries" expressed by an alarming number of people to be the "other-izing" of Obama. Just as nations make other nations' people into caricatures and less human in order that the soldiers can more easily kill them, the racists in this country are planting and nurturing the (any) idea that Obama is Muslim.
Now, for this to work (and polls indicate clearly that it is), people have to already have no internal template for the "self evident" rights acknowledged in the Constitution. Nor of the point of the separation of church and state. The Muslim thing can stick because it taps into the "Christian"-centrism of those people who don't understand it is equally abhorrent to be a religious bigot as it is to be a racial bigot.
Those people are fools. The people manipulating them are evil.
Just read an article in the WaPo about the startle-fear response in Republicans being more intense. All our attempts to make this thing rational? They will never work. Feelings are a good idea, but they have to be evaluated and compared with the intellect's experience. That is what does not happen. This may be what the Signers foresaw when they (erroneously, in many ways) omitted certain populations from voting.
Clearly, it has nothing to do with gender or race. But how rational people are has everything to do with what sort of country we are going to be. It is easy to be dismissive of those "others," but it is both unbecoming and impractical. I do not have any answers but it is a pleasure to correspond with someone who wants to consider the whole picture and remains civil, too.
"All our attempts to make this thing rational?"
"They will never work".
Good observation.
I believe the way to get around this, is to NOT ;)
So, for example, if some Conservative folks need to feel superior, need to be sarcastic, need to...
.
.
.
...then let's recognize that some Liberal principles CAN be advanced by making use of those very same emotions.
(If you track my posts you will see examples of this).
Liberalism must be advanced via several methodologies. The above is not meant to replace advancing the world via idealism. Instead, it simply shows GREATER respect for Conservative sensibilities than simply demanding Conservatives to have the heart of a liberal.
(The pragmatic nature of this approach however, does not hurt ;)
Jim
The "omissions" you speak of
The "omissions" you speak of were corrected, in part, by later amendments to the Constitution -- by Liberals.
When the Constitution was first written, the entire world view of "Liberalism," unfortunately excluded people of color, and women, as non-entities. In their wisdom, however, the Founders placed mechanisms in the Constitution to allow for changes (growth?) in society, and future definitions of "Liberal," and "Conservative."
The ideals of both Democracy, and a representative form of government, always include the Right to disagree. They do not, however, include the Right to dictate one point-of-view over another. The United States of America is not only a melting-pot of peoples, but it is also a melting-pot of ideas and beliefs.
We need to restore this country to some semblance of equanimity, and relegate the radical fringes to the dustbin of this phase of our growth.