Contempt of Congress?

So now Karl Rove is in "contempt of congress", right? Well, I never thought I would ever be on the same side with Rove, but there are an awful lot of Americans right now who are also in "contempt of congress".

And like many other Americans, I suspect, I am also in contempt of the ENTIRE administration, the supreme court, and most of the American press. Guys, you gave it away. You wanted to impress the president and you took it all in and laid it at his booted toes.

Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms died yesterday. Big man? Yes. Good man? Great man? Well. . . .

I must admire Helms for one thing. When he didn’t like what was going on he wrote about it, he got on the radio and talked about it and when it still didn’t go the way he thought it should he ran for office. That’s the heart of the American way, the way prescribed by the great political philosophers. So that is the good that I see in Jesse Helms. The problem I see is that when he was elected he represented only a part of his constituency, and rather than support and defend the constitutions of the State of North Carolina and the United States, he waged battle against both of them. He accumulated personal power and used that to accomplish his narrow tasks and abandoned both his authority and his duties.

Part of the reason that the democratic process is important is that it is the way in which civilization can hope to improve itself and learn from the mistakes of the past. People like Jesse Helms represent powerful forces which pull all of us backward into the darkness. Except for his change towards the treatment of AIDS, he seemed to be virtually the same person when he died as he was as a young man. In short, he didn’t seem to learn as he went through life, and remained the same man he had been programmed to be in his twenties and thirties.

As we close the door on Jesse Helms presence now, let us remember him for what he has to teach us.

© John Womack, 2008, All rights reserved.

Presidential Physicals - More Junk food?

All these presidential physical exams are just more junk-food for the American electorate. They are released at carefully chosen times in the selection process and usually by their own family doctors. John McCain even went so far as to restrict access to his records to a few people who could not record any information they saw, and they could only see the documents which were presented, and that release was only for one three hour period, the day before a major summer holiday.

It’s not like we haven’t had problems with presidents that physical exams might have detected before the voters were asked to cast their ballots. That’s been a fairly common occurrence over the past several occupants of the White House.

This is not a problem unique to politics. Any one aspiring to military service is required to pass a standardized physical exam. So are our policemen and firefighters. Bus drivers and airplane pilots are other jobs requiring standardized physical exams before the aspirant can even qualify to apply for those positions.

Being president of the United Sates is arguably at least as important as being a policeman, firefighter, bus driver or airplane pilot. It seems amazing that our country doesn’t have proper requirements already in place and require all candidates to submit themselves to such examination by qualified and INDEPENDENT physicians.

Dare we go further and suggest mental and emotional examinations? Why not? The military requires comprehensive physical, mental and emotional examinations (and passing them!) for any officer whose job will be connected with the delivery of nuclear weapons. All that “delivery”, by the way, is totally dependent upon an order from the ONLY member of that chain of command who has not passed such examinations.

Obviously we can’t put this is place before this election, not now, but we could begin such a national interest safeguard and require that it be in place some time in the future. The year 2012 might be good, or even 2010 as a trial run. We could even grandfather those already in office, but we do need to begin the process. Finally, should this be extended to members of congress and Supreme Court Justices? Why not? I like the idea.

Does the "R" Word Depress You?

The basic “Economics for Dummies” definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters in which the value of the Gross National Product does not grow. But what that REALLY defines is a “Corporate Recession”, and it’s occurrence depends very much on the spending habits of the consumers who pay for the goods and services the corporations provide for them to buy.

Let’s look at another kind of recession, one that's never talked about: a CONSUMER recession. If we use the same parameters as we used in the Corporate Recession then a Consumer Recession would begin when two consecutive quarters pass in which the value of our own individual Gross PERSONAL Product does not grow.

Let’s begin with wages. Wages are usually measured in dollars. But since we’re not talking about “income” we received, but the product we can buy with that income, then we have to measure the value of the products (and services) we can purchase with the dollars we have “produced” by our work and investing.

For example, we may be buying more gasoline and food than ever before. But that’s only if we measure those purchases in dollars. When you look at the AMOUNT of gasoline and the amount of the food we use, that can go down even as our expenditures in dollars goes up. In short, our cosumption in dollars could increase at the same time the “personal product” we realize is decreasing.

Managers though, don’t speak just about “wages”, usually they like to talk about “wages and benefits”, or “a wage and benefits package”. Can we compare the value of our wages AND benefits over the years? First, we can show that the average American's wages, once they are adjusted for inflation have actually decreased slightly since about 1970.

Now, what about those benefits? Benefits traditionally included retirement and medical care. These have decreased significantly over the past several years. Meanwhile the cost to the individual to buy or use any of these “benefit packagess” (i.e. medical insurance and retirement) on his or her own has soared. That means our actual wage and benefit package has decreased even before we compare what they will "produce" for us.

Another “benefit” consumers have received are various government programs which have provided money or services of value to the individual. These, of course, have also diminished over the past 30 years or so, and we find more and more programs being “privatized”, which means that the cost of those programs will always continue to rise while the services and products provided will always decrease.

Now, against the “income” of our total wages, benefits and governmental services, we subtract the “costs” we incure in procuring these items. these costs include purchases, debt and taxes. Let’s look at each of these.

Cost of purchases has gone up – really has to – that’s the basis for the American GNP, remember? Then there are the twin demons of inflation and cost of living adjustments (COLA). This is like the ancient battle between Good and Evil. In this battle, inflation always wins. Ever notice how the COLA is always called a “raise”, as if the recipients were being rewarded with “more” product? Actually, the COLA increase is always late, and always less than the increase of inflation. Therefore the COLA is always a loss.

Then there is the matter of debt, which does represent a product, however it always results in paying more dollars to secure a good or service that the original cost.

Lastly (for this discussion), there is the matter of quality. Do the things we buy last as long as they used to? Do they become obsolete quicker? Probably depends on what you buy, but if you find yourself buying more products to achieve the same level of satisfaction you used to get with fewer purchases, then you have encountered another decrease in the value of the product you buy with your income.

And what about "Imputed Taxes" - those contributions we have to make to lobbyist groups to represent us in congress. These keep going up, too. Our representatives are “supposed” to represent us. We “shouldn’t” have to hire “congressional mercenaries” to represent us to our own represenatives. But here is another place we are in competition with corporations. They spend much more money than we can to influence our representatives, and they use the money we have paid them to buy the goods and services they produce for us that we buy. Therefore, their payment to their lobbyists are also part of their expense of “doing business” therefore we pay that their lobbyist's costs as well as our own.

Well, if you figure all this out, and agree with me, then it is obvious that we are IN and HAVE been in a recession for some time. And if you look into these figures closely, they you may WELL feel a depression coming on.

True Fact.

So ~ the Clinton camp says that the only reason Obama is tied with Hillary is because he is a black male, right? I think they ARE right! My take on it is that if Obama were a white male, he would be WAY ahead.

And to think on the matter a bit longer, if Clinton were a white male, she would have been dumped along with Biden, Dodd, Richardson and the others a long, long time ago. Also, if her name wasn't Bill Clinton's Wife, she would have had to buy all the attention she has been given.

American Health Care.

After the death of Nataline Sarkisyan, in California on December 27, 2007 when CIGNA, the family health insurance plan, refused to cover the costs of a liver transplant we hear more people calling for an “European” type of health coverage for all Americans.

Right away, we hear others answer backt that that type of coverage is ineffecient and a waste of money and time. That seems to almost imply that our way is better.

Actually, we are not really looking for the perfect plan right now. We will gladly accept one that is inefficient, wasteful, arbitrary, confusing and down right stupid. All we want is that it be better than the one we have now.

As far as the costs - and it will cost money - we probably don’t care much about that either. Taxes will have to go WAY up. OK. But we will lose our insurance payments. I know a young lady with two young children who are paying $800 a month for their health care plan. They are all in perfect health and seldom use any of its services. They have to keep the plan though, because of the threat of a serious illness or sudden accident, also they need to get the plan and keep it when they have no medical problem. If there is a problem, and they are uninsured, they can’t get any insurance from anybody.

So, taxes would go up. How much? $10,000 worth? Probably not. Eurupe does it for a lot less.

Is Eurpoe’s health care as good as our own?

Depends on who is answering the question.

Presidential Duties.

President Bush has repeatedly said that the first job of the president is to defend the United States.

Now many of the presidential candidates are repeating that statement. They are all wrong.

The first job of our president is to support and defend the CONSTITUTION of the United States of America.

In final analysis the nation of the United States is not as important as its constitution is. There are lots of other nations but there is only one constitution of the United States. And if that goes the way of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib then it is all lost.

If we lose our constitution, it will not come back again. It is our child now, our responsibility, all of us. The president's job is to help lead us in this task. When we scrap it to defend the nation, we are giving away our birthright.

© john Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Armenia?

Why the fuss over Armenia? And why right now?

Pelosi said, in defense of that question from others, that it was never the “right time”, OK, but still, why choose what is possibly the WORST time to bring this up in the last 92 years?

Perhaps Karl Rove might have sneaked into Nancy Pelosi’s bedroom in the dark of night and whispered into her ear that he was unhappy with Bush and neo-cons for sending him “on down the road” and he knew exactly how to get even by bulldozing this condemnation resolution through the House of Representatives. That would surely embarrass George Bush, and might even lead to Turkey invading Iraq from the north, thus opening up another front in WWE (War Without End).

Of course, it simply plays into the hands of George Bush and provides the neo-con arsenal with some badly needed ammunition. It gives Bush an opportunity to look statesmanlike, and also shines a bright, international spotlight on the ineptness of the Democratic Party, and their organized lack of direction. It also gives unnecessary support to the old idea that only the president should deal with other countries, otherwise surly chaos will occur.

If passed, the resolution to condemn the obviously brutal slaughter of 1915 would make not a difference in anything except to stir up old hatreds. It would not “prove” anything or be any kind of a verdict from any widely respected court of justice, but only a political slam against people no longer alive by those who see the world as a tiny place.

This condemnation only serves to reinforce why the American people, as well as the people of the world, hold the United States congress in even greater contempt than they do the American president, and why, when in this time of great peril, whenever we look around us for someone to come to America’s help we find only the pitiful democrats.


©John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Lee Bollinger, School Yard Bully

Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, introduced the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the student body Monday. The introduction consisted of a series of verbal slaps to the face and insulting kicks on the shin. I'm sure it made Bollinger look like a big man in his own eyes, but the images that will remain with the people of the world will be different. My feelings were these:
1) Bully - you agree to introduce a guest, and instead you insult him instead without warning.
2) Barbaric - Ahmadinejad is not an Arab, but he is Muslim and a player in that arena. To insult a guest in that culture is to demonstrate barbarianism.
3) Sophomoric - Bollinger's words were not those of an educator, one who is a seeker of truth, one who constantly tests and looks for new ways. Instead they were the words of a preacher, one who already knows everything important and knows all the facts.
4) Stupid - Ahmadinejad was known to be slipping badly in public opinion throughout Iran, the Moslem, and particularly the Arab world. Many felt he was through and finished. After Bollinger's insults, Ahmadinejad was regarded well, as handling himself properly.
5) Shrouded - Bollinger's tirade tended to obscure Ahmadinejad's true lack of understanding of critical factors.
6) Wasted - Instead of challenging Ahmadinejad to comment on several important concepts, Bollinger told him before he began speaking that he (Ahmadinejad) was not worth listening to.

Columbia University fell in my own estimation as a result of this sad performance, and Ahmadinejad did what he could to save the day, including his faux-pas about no gays in Iran, and yet, one was left to wonder how George Bush would have performed speaking to and entertaining questions from the student body of a college in Iran, or anywhere else, like – for example – any American university.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

The Angel of Death Theory

The neocons seem near the end of a disastrous period of rule in the United States and hopefully they will be succeeded by saner heads. They are in such disgrace that nothing could possibly save them. Nothing that is, but the Angel of Death.

Who is the Angel of Death? It is George Bush of course, but wait – there’s much more to the story than just that basic fact. Think about what is at stake:
1) Many powerful Christian fundamentalists seem convinced Armageddon is near, that God’s Kingdom is at hand, and they have a role to play in that fulfillment of destiny.
2) Some Jewish fundamentalist seem to believe that there is window in time that is currently open, in which it will be possible to destroy not only Iraq, but Iran as well. Then, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will will be split asunder by New Israel which will expand to include Jordan, Syria and all of Palestine.
3) The American military is not in good shape. It may be near collapse and it now needs, according to some neocon aspirations, to be reborn as a great mercenary army. The current “surge” then would become not a temporary offensive but the beginning of a new invasion and a new military.
4) The Republican Party, which would be the “host” of these neocons, fundamentalists and mercenaries is in significant disarray. Its traditional leaders are in no position to confront these powerful members of its new core areas.
5) Nuclear strikes by the United States on several Iranian targets would render the United Nations helpless, and prove it to be useless.
6) The United States would then truly be the only superpower in the world and Israel would be free to control the Middle-east.
7) And this opportunity could be rapidly passing us by. If events run their normal course, and America begins a drawdown in Iraq, and the Republican Party loses badly in the forthcoming election, and the current administration is removed from power perhaps for years to come, then this great chance would be gone, and the neocons would lose an apocalyptic opportunity. It may well be now or never.
8) Last, and maybe most important of all, the American press and media are dying and continue to exist only on carefully fed bits of goodies dispensed from the government and are able to only broadcast crude cartoons and the most blatant sensationalism.

But you protest that the American people would not put up with any attack on Iran now, and the world community would see it as an outrageous invasion of a national sovereignty that would threaten them all. So how could such a sudden preemptive attack by America ever take place?

That’s where the Angel of Death comes in . It’s frighteningly simple. George Bush is assassinated. Willingly? Of course not. The assassin would be some member of the Neo-Con fraternity, perhaps one who seems poised for “greatness”. Someone with easy access to the president. He of course would be killed after the deed, along perhaps with other unaware members of the administration and they would become great heroes of a White House “shootout”. AND an Iranian would be produced as the villain, whisked off to Guantanamo, or elsewhere, never to be seen again as President Cheney took charge and immediately carried out the carefully planned series of missions, including carefully prepared leaks of false information about Iran’ s accelerating “preparation” to attack America.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Proud to be an American.

If we are serious about fighting a real War on Terror, and intend to win in Iraq and the middle east let’s MAKE the congress declare war. Let’s have the draft reinstated and take every American man and woman between the ages of 18 and 46. Let’s pick them up from their homes and from where they work and send them off: six weeks training and then on to Iraq for two to three or more years – no leave or vacations until the war is over. Let’s institute wage and price controls, bring back rent control and freeze the interest rates. Let’s begin rationing of goods, sell no more tires, restrict the sale of gasoline, put a 35 mph speed limit on all American roads. Let’s shutdown the auto industries and most of the other major industries in America and turn them into great war production machines. Let’s start collecting trash and converting it into war products, re-institute war bonds and let our kids buy war stamps in school. Let’s do all of this, IF we really believe George Bush when he says we are in the greatest battle of civilization’s history.

After all, that’s what Iraq is doing and that’s what al Qaeda is doing, and that’s what the Taliban is doing, and that’s what “Greatest Generation” of Americas did during World War II. But it seems like we don’t do any of that any more. We want to fight wars on the cheap, we think we are simply invincible and nobody can stand to fight us anymore. Besides, God is on our side and He will see we win in the end.

But this war in Iraq is lost in spite of God and everybody. It’s lost like the last few wars we “fought”. And for the same reasons. We lost Korea because the American people didn’t really want to fight it, they didn’t really believe in it. President Truman sent the troops in for an easy victory but the people had to be “sold” on the war later when the fighting turned tough. They didn’t buy it. We lost in Vietnam because the American people didn’t want to fight that one either – especially after they found out Lyndon Johnson lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” so we could get rough with North Vietnam and the Veit Cong. We lost Afghanistan because we just simply quit there so we could go invade Iraq. We lost Iraq because the American people never did believe George Bush and they didn’t want the war in the first place.

After all, Bush wasn’t “just wrong” on every single issue from the WMD to the AlQuida in Iraq, to the Saddam Hussein planning the 9-11 attacks, to the yellow-cake thing, to the “MIssion Accomplished” thing, and the “bring them on” thing, and his cute little “what insurgency?” thing. He wasn’t just ignorant about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and so on. He was lying. He was lying to the congress, lying to the American people, lying to the world. It’s his war, his personal war and he has only a few people really behind him, namely a few Bush patriots like Cheney, Libby, Gonzales, Perle who have sworn allegiance to Him, not the constitituion, and – of course – “the troops”.

So now this war has become a special kind of hell for a few Americans. Those are the “Troops” we just mentioned. They go and come and go again. We say we won’t forsake our “troops” there so we send them back again to relieve themselves. And we send them back sooner and keep them there longer. And again. And again. And again. And we still won’t forsake them there so we send them back again – too often they are the same guys – we did that in Vietnam, remember? Meanwhile, the rest of us are here at home, building our lives, moving up in our jobs, putting down roots, getting our kids through schools, moving to new neighborhoods, buying better houses, new cars, TVs, computers, and we won’t forsake our troops, either. We help them to rotate over again to relieve each other more quickly and help them to stay there longer to give “the troops” back home a break. We watch our own kids get married, we go to the high school football games, and watch the news occasionally. We put new bumper stickers on our new SUVs to show we really do support our troops. We wave the flag. We stomp our foot. We support our president! Hot damn! It’s good to be an American.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Fred Thompson

It is already apparent one of the approaches that Thompson will try will be that of the good ole southern gentleman. He will admire Hillary, and even hold a door open for her should the occasion arise, and he will make it clear that while he thinks she is fine and dandy that it is simply God's own words that the ladies belong in submissive status in someone's home. Of course he won't say any words that come close to stating such beliefs, but it will be interesting to see how he and his handlers approach that. As far as Barrak is concerned, Fred will again evidence admiration for the good boy, he will be proud of him and will make it clear – again without words to this effect – that Barrak is a credit to his race. Thompson's role will be that of the gentleman with the white man's burden, he won't say this but his actions will not be lost on his core.

The Sport of Executive Privilige

I don't really want to hope that Michael Vick receives a severe punishment for his misdeeds. After all he did not kill innocent children or destroy villages faraway from Washington. He didn't lie to congress or rip-off American taxpayers to the tune of several billion dollars (a day!). He didn't have secret plans to enrich his family and friends with great treasures of oil revenues while at the same time making his country even more dependent upon his Saudi friends services. But the real problem is that it is all the same thing. It all boils down to "Executive Privilege". If you are rich enough or powerful enough - then the laws of the nation don't apply to you. Then you live in a different world. You can do whatever you "need" to do.

Bridge Collapse

Not the first time this has happened. This is a bridge that had been identified as "deficient" in 1990. There are some 40,000 other locations identified as "deficienct" in American infrastructure. Meanwhile our roadbuilding continues and it all is based on accomodation of more and more automobilles. America has no serious light rail service available with the exception of a few highly-populated regions. We will not convert overnight to a light rail service but we can begin. Minneapolis would be a good place to start. Not to replalce highways with light rail but to begin providing that alternative for our people. We don't have to begin there but it would be not only appropriate but also symbolic. Let's face it, most of America's problems are automobille-related. Without our dependence on middle-eastern oil, our endless-seeming communutes, our high accident toll, pollution, sprawl, congestion and so on.

Obama Blew It

Obama said that if he were president of the United States and received "actionable intelligence" that the Waziristan area of Pakistan “needed” to be bombed that he would not only bomb it but also send American troops in regardless of what Pakistan wanted. This shows the world that Obama thinks he is seeking recognition by the Democratic Party of the U.S. that he will become acclaimed as Emperor of the Planet, rather than a temporarily factotum of one of the now second-world nations in the international body of nations.

Of course Karl Rove will say nothing, only lick his chops, he certainly would do nothing to impede Obama from becoming the Democratic Party candidate in the elections. Nonetheless, a plan of action is now being assembled in Rove's magic kitchen of ways to treat this at the proper time. What if Obama is not the candidate? No matter. Every Democratic Party candidate-to-be will be forced to comment on Obama's statement, and every Republican Party member will have a unified response already prepared for him or her.

Unfortunately Musharraf has no good options, but he cannot let this pass. To remain quiet would be interpreted by his Pakistani opponents – including the Taliban – as acquiesce, and he will be so charged by them. He has no choice but to respond. No matter what, his position as Emperor of Pakistan has been weakened. Not that Musharraf’s passing would be reason for regret, but the region is ripe for political and religious explosion. If we could only bring the diplomatic forces of the world to help soothe the irritations of this part of the world and not to cast more gasoline upon the smoldering embers.

But alas, that is not to be. America has also been shown again to be the little country boy, walking along a dirt road, carelessly kicking rocks out of his pathway and dreaming of becoming rich and famous, but totally unaware of the world in which he lives.

Who to Believe?

The war drums are beating again as generals and staffers claim Iran is providing new types of explosive devices. They leave the matter with a pregnant pause as if to say "So what should we do"? It all seems to imply a need for revenge, attack and more war.

Iran says they are not doing this so who are we to believe? Iran or our president? Unfortunately, George Bush and his entire administration has lied to the American people, the US Congress and the entire world about everything connected with the war in Iraq from the WMD to the Saddam-connection-with-9/11, and on and on and on. Now we have to decide who we should believe in a he-said, he-said type of thing. Too bad this had to come up right after Scooter Libby had his prison sentence for lying under oath commuted by George Bush. Seems that maybe he did lie, but according to our president it was a "necessary" lie, or maybe it was a "patriotic" lie?

So when it comes to a show-down between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and George Bush as to whom do I believe . . . and if the choice may lead to war . . . then . . . well, maybe we ought to just see what this other guy has to say if he will agree to participate in an international discussion. I'm sure Mahmoud has been wrong in the past too, but every - single - time?

© John Womack 2007. All rights reserved.

Commute? Commute What?

The word “commute” means to exchange, replace or substitute one thing for another. Bush said he was commuting Liddy’s prison sentence, but took a prison sentence for lying, and replaced it with a reward for lying. Did Bush misspeak again, or was this something different? Maybe this is some of those “consequenchies” he promised to bring to America if he was elected?

Perhaps what was really commuted was the American constitution. Maybe our system of laws with its checks and balances, and division of powers has just been commuted to a new system of “doin’ what comes nacherly”, a new form of “it’s a miracle, by George!” It sounds like what they used to refer to back in the old swamps of north Florida as a “he-coon” running his territory the way it ought to be done.

It’s not so much that Bush is telling us he is going to do whatever he WANTS to do, but he is making sure we all know he will do whatever NEEDS to be done. Who decides the difference? He does. The He-coon is taking care of his pack. . The Decider is telling us that He and His “people” are above the laws that apply to ordinary people. If His people need to lie, then they should lie. If they tell a necessary lie He will take care of them. And rest assured that Libby will be pardoned along with many others at the last minute.

This also informs the American congress and courts that they really aren’t needed anymore. And if they ever are needed again, the Decider will call them and tell them where and when to assemble and what they need to do. The president will take care of America.

The same may apply to our military. They can now attack whomever they need to attack. How will they know who that is? The Decider will tell them. He may already have done that. Like He already did in Iraq. If He needs advice He can consult His old friend, Dick Cheney.

So – what to do? Well let’s face it, democracy never triumphs, it never wins in the end. It is always an uneasy balance between different and often opposing forces. It’s messy. It always involves uncertainty and makes its citizens do things they really don’t want to have to do. Like talking with each other about our common problems, like war, like presidential power, like patriotism. Notice I didn’t say we need to talk TO each other but WITH each other.

Can we even talk with each other again? Republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives, white and black, male and female and all the in-betweeners. All that can be done, not easy, but doable. But there is still a bigger problem, and that is the communication between America’s rich and poor, its educated and uneducated. Can we do that? Probably not.

But remember that revolution is always an alternative, too. Let’s not let that become too attractive to too many Americans.

Maybe we can’t talk to everybody, but at least we can talk to our friends and to our congress people. We can do e-mail, telephone calls, letters, blogs, articles to our local newspapers.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.

Choosing a president

The selection process is awesome. Raised hands, minor confessions, good postures, happy faces turning into Rushmore visages, these and other images sway supposedly intelligent people on the other end of the great tube.

Yet this process has been carefully developed and refined. It is really awesome. Look at its results: First of all, forget Carter. He was a misfit and should never have gotten here. But since WWII we have picked out some real doozies. Eisenhower was a natural, then came Kennedy and from there it got grim. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Regan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. All of these people have many things to keep them from ever being elected to ANY position, much less the hightest one we have in America. So what happened?

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell has come and gone. Few noticed his coming, many more noted his passing and not all of those did so in sorrow.

I hesitate to speak of him now because that is to honor him in a sense, but not to speak now is to pretend he didn’t matter. And he did matter. But what was the matter with Falwell?

As a child I was shocked when I first heard the old Baptist maxim (filched, unknowingly to me from the Old Bard) that “Even the devil can quote scripture.” I couldn’t really beleve that until Jerry Falwell shined a great light on that. There is another axiom that proclaims scripture alone is sufficeient for salvation. That is, if a person learns enough scrpiture, he or she can find the truth to eternal salvation. Jerry Falwell showed that reliance only upon scripture can create a “scripture savant”, an amazing and entertaining performer who hits all the right keys but doesn't really know what he is doing.

Falwell often preached from the top of a great pile of stones he had prepared to hurl at those who turned to abortion as a last desperate hope. Mostly poor, young, confused children themselves, whom he would blame as adultresses and condem to bear "their" child, who for many of them was not of their own intent. Then, after they birthed they could labor on and on endlessly through medical and educational and cultural and governmental and economic gestations seeking care and help for their child who was really sired by domination, disinterest and contempt.

Falwell also showed us that gays and lesbians were largely responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001. They brought this event upon all of us by their being alive, according to Jerry Falwell. But since Christians believe that all people were created by God and we know that approximately one out of every ten human beings are homosexual we must either assume that God is a failure at producing people – because a 10% rejection rate would be unacceptable ANYWHERE, by ANYBODY, or since scripture says all men are created in the image of God, then obviously God is telling us something about who “He” really is. God is gay? Well, obviously. How wonderful. Falwell though created god in Falwell’s own image. How sad. Falwell was truly a preacher of the little god.

©John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved

Immus' Problem

He had a lot of followers but not many friends. He was a pioneer in lots of ways, way out there all alone, taking shots at whatever pleased him to shoot. He seemed to some to be a poor man's philosoper but he was all alone in this too.

He fails the test of democratic dialog as presented from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and he does not fit with the democratic foundation of John Stuart Mill, Hume, Kant, Emerson, Bayer, Rousseau and many others – all these and their thoughts and opinions are foriegn to those of Immus.

Teachings from Moses, Jesus, Mohommed, Buddha, Ghandi, Dahli Lama, all of these and their ideals appear foreign to Immus. There is no room for any of them in his ideas.

His appeal is carefully confined to the lower class of Americans who are in debt, confused, worried and fearful of the future. These are people who don’t understand the nature of their problems and simply want someone to show them what to do without telling them to go do it. To these people he offers a target where they can focus their fearful gaze and instead of understanding the nature of the corporate cancer that is stealing their lives away, they are told to fear those who are even worse off than they are.

He is a master of inuendo. That’s what I grew up with in Mississippi: “You know what those people are like.” He belittles those whom he perceives as inferior to him and his pack, hence the “nappy-headed ho’s” comment was a typical snicker stick that his crowd could giggle over.

I see nothing positive in his entire presentation. His approach is to attack the wrong targets – for example placing blame on Snoopy Dogg Dog as being a black performer of bad rap instead of putting the blame for all of that on the marketing processes that made Mr. Dog moderately rich, and the the corporations who support him so powerfully wealthy in money and social power.

Immus seems to me to be a fundamental facist. The solutions to his problems are not to understand the nature of our problems and to work together to improve the lives of the people affected by them, but to build walls, to isolate “his people” into some “nation” that will be “pure” and will always instantly know the “proper” solution to every problem, and will obiedently serve some not yet identified powerful leader. He and his ilk are peddlers of human values for those who have none of their own. Tells people what to think instead of how to think.

Fascists always work on the people like a cook serves up Gyro’s, shaving off the outermost pieces of the lamb in that case, the population in this case, as the meat slowly turn over the fire. First the Jews, perhaps, then the homosexuals, then – like Hitler – the communists and then the gypsies, the blacks and browns don’t have to go – completely – as long as they can be subservient and helpful, Asians make a nice slice, Indians might be next, and so on. There are always people on the outside and always new people learning to slice. What’s the solution? Education is our only hope, but schools no longer educate students, so we have to teach each other. People like Immus, Limbaugh, Michael Savage and many others, take advantage of this great vacuum of knowledge, it is their home behind the baseboards of civilization.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.