DREAM COME TRUE -- ALMOST

I would truly love for this to be an actual photo of me and the President and First Lady.  Alas, it's not.  They're just cardboard likeness displayed in the local democratic campaign office.

Ah, sweet fantasy!

MORE "DAMN LIES"

There are ordinary lies and there are "damn lies."  Ordinary lies are told out of weakness and a desire to not hurt other people's feelings or look out for one's personal well-being.  "Damn lies" are deliberately hand crafted to delude and deceive with salacious ulterior motives.

The Romney/Ryan campaign are masters of "damn lies."  They desperately hope enough people will be gullible enough to believe them. 

One of the most blatant of these "damn lies" is the currently playing campaign ads that tell the American public Chrysler is planning to ship auto production for the domestic market to China. 

It's a total "DAMN LIE!"

Go to this article to get the facts about lyin' Ryan and lyin' Romney;  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/chrysler-romney-jeep-ad_n_2046038.html

Be sure to check out the litany of other false Romney statements that accompany this article.  I'm of the opinion that he's one of those idividuals who will tell a lie when the truth would serve him better, just to hone his skill.

LET'S GET REAL!

On another blog I keep up with and often comment on, someone I've had words with before spewed out some Rethuglican nonsense I just could not resist countering.  He thinks the problems with our nation are all the social programs which he considers that hated "socialism."  He wants the past world of the robber barons back, like many other stupid so-called "conservatives."  Here's my reply to him:

"'Let me hear a "Amen brother'!"

Not from me. Nor from any other true patriot who understands history and what is at stake.

You know where I stand, since we've had our words over it, and it's not with the 1% who are the real bankrupters with their welfare for themselves, poverty, want, national decline and Taliban-like control for everyone else with ill-conceived, unnecessary wars to enrich themselves while the country goes to hell and everything that made us great is destroyed.

Go stand with Romney/Ryan and their tyranical, lying, disgusting ilk and watch everything real patriots built until about thirty years ago with the election of "acting president" Reagan and the long so-called "conservative" plunge into national oblivion and theocratic fascism. (Their fanatical forerunners even succeeded in putting "under God" in the pledge of allegiance! I'm not under any god and my nation was never meant to be either. Those words never exit my mouth when the pledge is repeated. They won't stop until we're cringing under blasphemy laws and every other theist horror they can dream up.)

It's Rome all over again from where I observe and we just might get our Mormon Caesar. I admire Cato like George Washington and the other great founders of our nation did. He cut out his guts rather than live under Caesar's dictatorship with only the form and ceremony of original Rome. The republic was history, and he knew it. Ours will be history to if that evil cabal succeeds!

You might as well start shouting, "Viva Mormonism and Catholicism!" That's what we would have."

SURVIVAL OF THE RICHEST

Phyllis just said something which got me thinking.  She said it would soon be a system of the survival of the fittest and the devil take the hindmost if Mitt Romney somehow managed to win this election. 

She was referring to Romney's goal of getting rid of first response organizations like FEMA, and who knows what else.  He wants to unload all federal programs possible onto states, and even onto the private sector so rich people like him can make even more obscene wealth providing inept and inadequate emergency services to suffering, vulnerable humanity.

Mankind rose to the heights it occupies by organizing together to provide for the common interest and good.  Things like natural disasters cry out for national solutions -- not some inept state by state hodge podge of under funded and communication breakdown ridden little local setups, or for-profit schemes handled by corporate lords with their eye on the bottom line and their position in the stock market.

Nature operates on the principle of the survival of the fittest and the evolutionary record shows that a whole bunch of species, numbering in the millions, if not billions, didn't have enough fitness when a crunch came along.  They're long gone. 

Humans have the mental capacity to figure ways around problems and emergencies, so we've survived and now constitute a population of around 7 billion.  That's one great reason why national and international cooperation and programs are so essential.  We have to stick together and work together to make the resources necessary readily available when a crisis comes along.

If we follow Romney's misguided, greedy, self-serving vision, we will devolve down to the point where survival is no longer a matter of who is the fittest, but who happens to be the richest.  Eventually, that won't even work because the basis for being rich will have disappeared.

ESCAPED A RIPOFF

I work hard for what little I earn above and beyond that horrible handout we, as members of that slothful 47%, get each month for those terrible "socialist" programs like Social Security and state retirement.  That makes me kind of careful how I spend it.

I made some money last week on carpet work and a wedding ceremony.  So, I got the oil changed in Phyllis' car this morning.  It was somewhat overdo, and we got the customary list of recommended things to do soon.  Gotta wait for some more extra jobs to handle those.  They have a maddening way of always being somewhere in the two hundred dollar range.

A few days ago, I opened the lid on our water softener and discovered we were almost out of the potassium cloride we use.  Time to recharge.

Five years ago, I bought a forty pound bag of that chemical for just over ten dollars.  I know things have had to go up just because of the increase in fuel costs, but gimme a break.  The last time I recharged (partially) the bags were just under $24 at both WalMart and Home Depot.  Both places were selling Morton brand.

This morning, I grumbled my way down to WalMart, and loaded up two bags now priced a few cents under $27.  After I'd bought them, someone told me Home Depot now had another brand at a considerably lower price.  I thanked them and hustled down to customer service for a refund.

At Home Depot, the price was $16.97.  Just one problem.  There wasn't a single bag in that spot.  Seems the word is getting around.

A clerk got someone from the back and I was told a supply would be right out.  It was, and I calculated that I could now buy three bags and did -- for less than the two bags were going to cost me earlier.

The water softener is now plumb full and should not need service until sometime next summer or fall. 

Thank you, kind informant.

THE EVIL CHAMELEON MASQUERADE

If you want to know how women's rights would fare under a Romney/Ryan presidency, you need only look to Romney's approach to women as an official in his Mormon Church.  Ryan's approach is abundantly clear from public statements he has made, all harmonious with the dismal history of Catholicism and their oppression of women.  They make a very harmonious team.

A very insightful blog article by Geoffrey Dunn lays out a very disturbing account of what women can expect from a president Romney.  Read about it here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/mitt-romney-mormon-women_b_1956568.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

As I said earlier in another blog, when I see Romney's snake-like smiling face, I see the evil emperor portrayed in Star Wars films.  Barack Obama praised him as a loving family man.  Sorry, Mr. President, you are dead wrong.  He is not loving.  He is not good. 

He is pure evil.

MORE RETHUG CLUELESSNESS

Newt Gingrich can't understand why so many people are upset over what Mourdoch said about rape and pregnancy.  Here's the gist of his approach, word for word:

"He also immediately issued a clarification saying he was referring to the act of conception, and he condemned rape," Gingrich said. "[Mitt] Romney has condemned -- I mean, one part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent American I know condemns rape. OK, so why can't people like Stephanie Cutter get over it? We all condemn rape."

Any decent person sees rape as a horror.  That's not the point, clueless Newt.

The point is that you and the rest of your theistic bullies want to impose your interpretation of what your bronze age imaginary diety supposedly wills and decrees -- through you and whatever religious authority you espouse -- on everybody as the "will" of that non-existent bag of garbage.

There are a whole bunch of us who don't agree with your interpretations of the universe and ultimate reality.  In your mind, we don't count because you and your ilk are the arbiters of ultimate truth that must be forced upon everybody else.

Mind your own damn business and quit trying to legislate your insane superstitions into our lives! 

AIDING AND ABETTING RAPISTS

In addition to what I've had to say about stupid and totally reprehensible statements about rape that have proceeded from the mouths of our theocratic, christofascist politicians, I just camee across this wonderfully crafted article:  http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/25/a-fan-letter-to-certain-conservative-politicians/#comment-390067

No further comment needed.  Just read it.

A "WHAT IF" FOR MOURDOCH

My last blog dealt with Richard Mourdoch and his stupid, inane statement that a pregnancy from rape would just constitute an example of "god's" rather ghoulish "will."

My wife came up with a rather thought provoking scenario.  She wondered how he would react if his wife or teen-age daughter happened to be the recipient of this rather horrific manifestation of god's "will."  After all, maintaining control over trillions of determined little sperm cells released worldwide every day could get a bit overwhelming even to a supposed omnipotent deity.  Can't blame him if he got exhausted and threw up his hands and said "Aw, f++k it!

It's easy to be cavalier about such situations when they are only hypothetical and involve just plain ordinary people.  Or, women, which it seems, are lesser beings than him, as far as he is concerned.

It would be indeed interesting to see how Mourdach would react if the hard, cold reality struck home in his own household.  I have a feeling His tune might change -- dramatically!

FLABBERGASTED

I am sitting here in stunned bafflement that any even moderately intelligent human being could say what GOP candidate Richard Mourdoch said.  The article didn't state but I am sure he has to be a "teapublican."

Mr. Mourdoch stated that he opposed abortion for pregnancies arising out of rape because..."it is something that God intended to happen." 

OK.  Let's think about the implications of that ludicrous statement.

Let's not condemn Hitler and the Nazis for the holocaust.  Obviously, since "god" didn't stop it, he intended it.  Let's not jail or execute murderers, child molesters, terrorists, etc.  Let's whitewash all the horrors of history.  Lets just chalk all of it up to "god's will" and skip merrily along.  That's really what all of them, from the Pope to the thoughtless laity in most churches confidently endorse.  "It's God's will" becomes the mindless mantra that excuses every horror imaginable.

Mr. Mourdoch has actually clarified one of the main reasons I don't believe in or worship any "god."  I have contempt for their definition of their god because he clearly, if he existed, is an accesory to the horrors that exist in the world.  Neither he nor any of his vaunted "angels" rouse their lazy asses (that don't exist) to do a damned thing to protect millions of totally innocent and helpless people, no matter how desperately they cry out for deliverance.

I used to be deluded and think I got all kinds of help from divine sources.  It was all happenstance.  I've had just as much -- actually more -- seemingly benevolent outcomes after coming to my senses and chucking those superstitions overboard simply because I've lived more years in unbelief than I did in belief.  Life is a crapshoot and the dice sometimes come up in your favor irrespective of what or who you believe in.

Can the American people actually be dumb enough to put people like that in office?  I hope not, but recent history can only cause me to question.

ROME ALL OVER AGAIN?

What's been happening on the political scene the past four years has made me so mad and disgusted I could spit tacks, nails, barbed wire (you name the analogy).  This article sums it up pretty well:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/mitt-romney-ad-massachusetts_n_1998052.html

We elected a president four years ago and he came into office with high hopes and solid plans to turn the nation around.  Millions, including me, had high hopes.

The opposiiton blatantly set out to sabotage everything that president Obama set out to do -- even denouncing  and standing in the way of things they originally were in favor of and championed.  All to discredit and drive out of office that very president.  And, they were cocky enough to do it while owning the fact of what they were doing.

Now, a great many of my fellow Americans are too dumb to see the subterfuge and the hypocrisy.  They're falling for the lies!  We're in danger of having these lying would-be despots actually pulling it off. 

If they do, America is doomed, as far as I can see.  Like ancient Rome, we'll be headed into fascism driven by theocracy.  Our democratic republic will probably be over -- forever.  What follows will only be a deceitful sham.

Romney would load the federal government with hand picked purveyors of his insane Mormon philosophy.  He'd also let Ryan run rampant with his Catholic doctrine as long as it agreed with his mormonism (much of it does).  I remember the fiasco Ed Mecham brought to the state of Arizona.  Romney would do even worse to the United States of America.  Our standing in the civilized, rational world would go to zilch overnight.

Forget any real freedom of conscience and personal belief if this cabal seizes power!  The same lies and subterfuge seen in this campaign would soon become the modus operandi of our national government.  They'd load the Supreme Court with fanatics like themselves.

Denounce me as an alarmist or whatever you wish.  I stand with Cato, the great Roman patriot and inspiration to Washington and his army, who was so distraught over Caesar's rise to power that he commited suicide by disemboweling himself.  We all know, or should, what happened to Rome.  But, then, not many people like history, and they very well may be doomed to repeat it, as numerous historians have pointed out. 

THAT INDOLENT 47%

Sorry, Mitt.  We just can't seem to keep ourselves from showing up your inane pronouncements.  We're such troublesome debunkers of your stereotypes.

Here I am, at 78, With a carpet repair job booked for Friday afternoon and a wedding ceremony for Saturday.  Maybe another call will come in for earlier in the week.  And, I'm working Aflac as well.  Have to get busy tomorrow making the monthly checkup on active accounts.  I'm so lazy and dependent, you know.  I just can't bring myself to take any responsibility for my own welfare. 

On top of that, can't seem to keep myself off this internet and feel compeled to voice my opinions on so much nonsense and drivel that you and others feel compelled to spout.

Then, there's my little wife, Phyllis.  She's been tossing around ideas for doing something productive as well -- at the ripe young age of 76.  Just this past week, an opportunity dropped in her lap.

For many years, she taught defensive driving classes here in the state of Arizona, evenings and weekends while holding down a regular career job during the day.  She was very good because she set up the state program when she worked for the Arizona Supreme Court and knew it and Arizona traffic laws backward and forward.  I used to go with her and do the paperwork.

Seems the state of Arizona is in deep need of qualified class monitors to go around to defensive driving classes periodically and check up on schools and individual teachers, so she has been offered a position as one of those monitors.

She plans to take it.  It entails three days of preparatory classes in Phoenix to get certified and a good bit of driving around the state.  I will likely accompany her most of the time.  I'm very good at finding locations and programming the GPS.  She, not as much.

So, Mitt, want to comment again about how dependent and irresponsible we of the 47% are?

Incidentally, we have already voted in this election, and not one single vote went to you or any of your theocratic fascist friends.  Go run for Mormon president.  They'd love to have your closed, deluded mind running their so-called "Christian" cult!  It's only a little more stupid than regular Christianity.

THE LIES ILLUMINATED

I've been branding Romney and Ryan as liars.  Some people might take issue with that.

Here's a fact saturated article that states much better than I can exactly why they are liars:  http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/10-things-mitt-romney-and-paul-ryan-dont-want-americans-know?page=0%2C1

I hope some people will take the few minutes necessary to read that article.

EXTOL "LOVE" -- PRACTICE "HATE"

If you read the whole account cited in my last blog, you know exactly what I'm referring to.  Theists can wax eloquent about "love" up until the moment someone dares to call into question anything about their "faith."

As soon as that happens, the fangs and claws immediately appear.  All pretense of tolerance or love suddenly disappears in a flurry of denunciation, vitriol and outright hateful violence.  Nothing is deemed off limits to the most extreme of these fascist-minded idealogues.

If one wants to know what the most extreme cases of human-on-human brutality happen to be, all they have to do is check the records of religiously based pogroms and holocausts.  They are myriad and become especially horrific when another ideology -- politics -- enters into the picture.  That's why our national founders were so insistent on separating those two dangerous mindsets.

Modern extremists set on totally controlling their neighbors and the world chafe under that wise separation provision incorporated into our Constitution and seek any and all crafty means of circumventing and nullifying it.  Chief among these efforts is the seeding of the Supreme Court with "conservative" idealogues who will undermine personal liberty with ideological tyranny.

If you don't think you will be hated if you dare to reveal yourself as a non-believer, just go down to Mississippi and Alabama and publicly try to establish a secular or atheist organization.  Just defend the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and see how fast you will be vilified and ostracized, and even murdered if you get too involved in any organization so dedicated.

Humans are good at saying one thing while emotionally practicing another.  Nowhere is this more pronounced than where religious and political ideology becomes involved. 

Ideology turns fanatic humans into murderous monsters!

ELOQUENT STATEMENT TO THEOCRATIC FASCISTS

"A Greek atheist stands up against Christian fascists.  (Click on this link to read the whole account of her experience which could just as easily have happened right here.)

"I wish I could tell them: I am not a lesbian, but even if I were, what would it matter? I have a husband and a child, but even if I didn’t, what would it matter? I’m not Albanian, but even if I was, what would it matter? I’m not a communist, but even if I was, what would it matter? I don’t believe in God, but what does it matter? Some people have a different opinion about God and Christ and the Virgin Mary — what does it matter? You demand respect for your right to believe in God as you like, why don’t you respect others’ rights to believe in a different way, or not to believe at all?"

The quote above was taken from the Pharyngula blog.  It states very succinctly what I have felt for a long time.

The news is filled with vitriolic attacks which sling supposedly negative terminology around like the waste water it resembles.  "Socialist," "communist," "unchristian," etc., etc.  Name calling has become standard stock in trade in politics -- always trying to create prejudices and then using those subtle prejudices to influence and deceive gullible people.

Because I believe the healthiest economies and the best societies are created through a carefully thought out and crafted blend of capitalism and socialism, I can expect to be denounced as a hated socialist or even a communist.  No thought.  No careful analysis.  My carefully thought out world view is summarily dismissed by utilizing mindless prejudice against a phastasmic boogeyman or "boogeyidea."

I can also expect to be hatefully denounced as a "murderer" because I believe a woman should have the right to practice birth control and end a pregnancy if she feels unprepared to follow through with an unwanted and ill-advised pregnancy.

Instead of my atheism being accepted as the result of careful thought, reasoning and research, I am denounced as some monster with no morals who is totally unworthy of acceptance in civilized society.

Our government has been almost totally paralyzed for nearly four years now by a concerted effort by one party to demonize the other party and its champion who just happens to be the lawfully elected and installed President.  They publicly stated that their goal was to make sure he would not be re-elected.  Many people have forgotten that and blame him for his inability to do more to extricate our nation from the financial catastrophe that same obstructionist party brought about.

Let's get real here!  American presidents are not kings!  They can't rule by fiat!  To get things done, they have to have the cooperation of congress! 

Instead of condemning and thinking they might not vote for Obama, they should be congratulating him on the rather outstanding things he has accomplished against all the naysaying, obstructionism and grandstanding he has had to put up with.

Far too many people (and I have to watch myself in this area) act on emotion, not reason.  That is why negative campaign slogans work so well.  Emotion tends to turn the mind off.  Angry people are not thinking people most of the time.  Many a murderer came to that realization after letting his/her emotional anger precipitate a fatal attack on someone that put them in prison for life or sitting on death row.

Emotions are not evil in and of themselves.  However, they must be based on and held in check by careful thought.  The theocratic fascists of the Republican party know they must get people to feel first and think later (or never) if they are going to win in about three weeks.

I'm hoping enough thought can be generated to offset all this mindless sloganeering.

LIES ARE LIES

Robert Gibbs has stated that Mitt Romney's debate statements were "fundamentally dishonest." 

They sure were, but I prefer a much less "nicey nice" approach in terminology.

THEY WERE LIES!  MITT ROMNEY IS A LIAR!

Barack should have challenged them as such during the debate, and I hope he will do so in the coming debates instead of letting himself be bowled over by the confusing, totally lying change of approach Mitt used.

The whole damn Republican party has become a bastion of lies and liars!!  The "big lie" is their stock in trade!

We've become a nation of put the gloves on and be nice water downers.  Plain speaking is judged "uncouth" in most circles, so we use euphemisms like "fundamentally dishonest" when "lie" would be much more accurate and hard hitting.

Lies are lies, dammit.

Let's speak clearly.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, REPUBLICAN?

There is no such thing as a Republican party anymore.  It's a total misnomer for what is in fact the American Fascist party. 

I just heard on MSNBC from Rachel Maddow that even though the courts had disallowed the Pennsylvania photo voter ID law, official Pennsylvania state websites still published the draconian rules that struck down law mandated until she and MSNBC called them on it and forced them to change what their website was stating.  They were still trying to intimidate non-republican voters into not exercising their constitutional rights.

I don't care who likes my saying it.  The Republican party ceased to exist a long time ago and has been replaced by a theocratic fascist party which has comandeered the name "Republican."  Their stock in trade is lies, obfuscation and strong arm oppression. 

Romney and Ryan are the fuhrers of that party and just as dedicated to the big lie and oppression as any European fascist ever was. 

NOT A GOOD DAY

I watched the debate last night.  It was a terrible experience.  I don't like debates to begin with.  They're nothing but big arguments that crafty con artists make hay with.

Last night was no exception.  Romney was his usual Mormon, Bain Capital lying chameleon conman self who walked all over "too nice" Jim Lehrer and Obama seemed taken aback and unable to command his masterful speaking skills and knowledge of the facts to his advantage.

I can only hope that future debates will find Barack much more ready to outflank the lies and carefully crafted misinformation and false statistics in a more dynamic fashion.  He has to quit being "Mr. nice guy."  Romney is not "nice."  He's a savage, blood thirsty predator and has to be dealt with accordingly. 

Barack needs to study general Patton who had the instinct to go for the throat and "Let the goddamn enemy worry about his flanks."

DEATH -- COPING IS INDIVIDUAL

She's my friend, but I've never met her in person.  I follow her blog and admire her character and her ability as a writer.

Greta Christina just lost her father with whom she had not been very close.  Nevertheless, his death has plunged her into intense grief which she narrates on her blog, through which we, her friends, try to help with our comments.  I just posted this one.

"Don’t know if I’m normal or abnormal, but I didn’t go through intense grief when either of my parents died. I expected it. They both had lived into their mid and late nineties and life was not treating them well. It was more of a relief than grief. Of course, I miss them being here. Yet, not an overwhelming feeling of loss.

My uncle died after a long life which was ended by lukemia. The doctors tried to keep him alive with blood transfusions, but he was so miserable he just begged “let me go.” They did. He went. He’s gone. The world goes on.

One day, I’ll go. Some will grieve, but I hope not too deeply because I’ll be better off without the life that is becoming more of a struggle and disappointment every day. I’m a shadow of the man I was just a short time ago.

So, don’t worry about your feelings. Let them play out and do what you have to do to cope in your own individual way. Your feelings and reactions are just you. There’s no right or wrong about them. We, of all people, should not feel guilty about how we feel. After all, no one has any right to pass judgment on how we feel or how we cope. It’s really none of their business."

That's exactly how I feel on the subject.  This concept of having to do certain things and feel certain ways so others, and especially some sky fairy "god," will approve of us is just plain nonsense. 

I really don't know oftentimes why I think and feel the way I do.  Why can I put things like my youngest son abandoning the family and not communicating with any of us for over 5 years now in the back of my mind without it tying me up in emotional knots?  It just doesn't.  Does that make me a hard-hearted, uncaring person? 

I don't think so. 

I'm just pragmatic and analytical enough to know there is nothing I can do at the moment to change the situation and it would be a waste of time and emotional energy to let it consume me.  I think he will eventually come down off whatever "high horse" he is riding and seek to resume contact with me and his brother and sisters.  I've tried to locate him.  I even sent a letter to an old address, but he's no longer there.  I can't afford to hire an investigator to locate him.  So, I've concluded that I just have to wait it out and not worry about what anyone else might think about the situation. 

I don't, and won't, let it consume me.  I'm not going to tear myself apart emotionally worrying about what I could have perhaps done better to avoid the situation. 

Guilt parties are not for me.  They are another tool theists use to keep people feeling guilty and unworthy so they have to grovel before an imaginary god, and it always involves them bowing and scraping -- especially paying -- through those theists as "god's" representatives.  The catholics have that one down to perfection, but protestants are pretty damn good at it too.

How I react to life and it's problems and events is just me.  It reflects the sum total of what I have experienced and learned, along with the tendencies I inherited through the crapshoot of genetics. 

I am who I am. 

I think what I think. 

I feel what I feel.

That's just going to have to be good enough.

Anybody who wants to judge it can just go take a hike.