A bumper sticker says it best: "It will be a great day on Earth when education has all the funding it needs and the military will need to hold bake sales to build a bomber."
"Heads, I win; tails, you lose." -- Anonymous
I am sitting here reflecting on the state of the world, the state of the union, the state of the state of California, the state of the San Francisco Bay Area, and, perhaps most importantly, the state of my own household, the last of which I will probably spare most of you the details.
We are destined for war. This country is about to be plunged directly into what I'm sure the Christians are wailing as the Apocalypse. The war to end all wars. It says so in the Bible that the war will be fought in the Middle East, where the "Holy Land" originated.
I think it's been subconsciously planned that way for the last dodecade. Mr. Bush, Jr., says that he does not want to go to war, and yet here we are, not backing down. He says that Saddam Hussein and Iraq represent a direct threat to the United States of America and we need to disarm them.
Now, the logic as I understand it regarding the approach to Iraq (i.e., "bomb the hell out of them") versus the approach to, oh, let's say North Korea for the moment (i.e. "Hey, let's talk.") is that Iraq has been asked to disarm for the last twelve years and Gen. Hussein has not been exactly what I would call compliant.
Normally, I think I'd object to this behaviour on our part except that we're stepping in to enforce a treaty which was signed at the UN in 1991. Had that treaty not been signed on by the majority of the UN, I would go so far as to say we really do have no business going after Saddam Hussein.
I'm disturbed, though, by our ****less leader's approach. He evaded the question regarding removing Hussein from his position. He doesn't want Hussein taken out as much as he wants Iraq disarmed. I disagree with this. No country should be disarmed, or all of them should. They have the right to defend their own country, more so once they get a saner government in place.
But Mr. Bush wants them to completely disarm, ousted Hussein or no.
I think we are losing sight of the issues. What is our goal in completely destabilising the region? What is the point?
Another approach was brought up to me regarding this whole thing: What right do we have to play Big Brother and Moral Dictator, Inc. to the entire world? Where do we get off stating what is uncivilised? Where do we get the right to decide what is right and what is wrong in the world? Of course it's wrong according to us. But we don't live there. We don't have our history steeped in that culture; in fact, one would look at us and say we've had our history steeped in oaken casks filled with various fermented liquids, of which most of us have probably had more than enough.
But I digress.
Yes, the treatment of the citizens in other countries (Iraq, just to pick one) is abhorrent BY MOST STANDARDS. The dominant figures of the country don't see that they are doing anything wrong, and until we can convince them that they are doing something truly wrong by means of logic and deduction, we don't have the right to march in and put our foot down and say "Stop that."
It is not our job.
In fact, doing so as we are trying to do is a direct violation of the Prime Directive. For people unacquainted with the Prime Directive, it is summed up as such: "There shall be no interference with the progress of other cultures in such a manner as to be completely disruptive to the flow of events." At least this is as I understand it. Educate them, show them why it is horrible. I think if we are to do something like that, perhaps we should at least invert the power pyramid and put the overlords in the position of the subjugated and give them something to think about. But that will take the effort of the subjugated, and it will take some thought and consideration on their part. That said, I think it would not be a bad idea to educate them. This will take probably ten generations of constant effort to get them out of that situation, and I think it's probably a good idea to start.
But bombing the hell out of them is not going to achieve this. It will be like kicking a hornet's nest. There are probably hundreds of nationals over here who are ready at the drop of the first bomb to take out our centers of communication, thus rendering most of us by and large cut off from each other. I guarantee it would not take much to cause mass chaos in the area. A couple of guys driving around in an SUV loaded with Molotov Cocktails at 3 in the morning and tossing them out the window in random wooded areas and places where we have built our homes in natural -- and highly flammable -- settings. It would only take a single catastrophically scaled fire in any given area to draw out most of the reserves in a region. Imagine what happens if there are MANY of them.
And there are not enough funds given to the states to cover this because it's all gone to war; what remains to be given is not given because the government is deciding to punish the states that did not elect them.
But I digress.
On to North Korea. Why are we not demanding that North Korea disarm? Why are we not using strong-arm tactics against them? Because they would kick our butt through the ceiling on the way down. They have nuclear weapons capable of a first strike on the left side of this country. What are our defenses? If we have a means of disarming them, perhaps we should, but it is very clear that we will not be able to do so by force.
The difference between North Korea and Iraq is pretty simple:
- Daddy didn't start a war with North Korea.
- North Korea doesn't have a heck of a lot of liquid petroleum investment fodder.
It is all about the money, folks. Wake up.
This brings me to the state of the union.
We're sitting here on the brink of war, with our economy in the toilet and the scum still clinging to the rim. We have NO reserves for our states. We were, at one point, in a true recovery, potentially able to keep ourselves from going into debt. We were able to begin to rebuild educational standards, and we were making some serious headway after a long ethical recession.
And now, thanks to all the money being sunk into this war, we the people are paying out of our lower intestines for something most of us do not want to pay for, and this is just the tip of the ice cube.
Why are we doing this? Is an oil field in the Middle East really that much of an answer to the energy woes of this country that it will prove to bail us out once we reclaim it? I seriously doubt it.
Speaking of energy and money (the two do, after all, seem to go hand in hand), get what's going on in Sunny California.
The state wants to surcharge customers who provide their own power, whether by the Sun or any other means.
They insist it is the duty of the customers to pay for the shortfalls and the mistakes and the federal screwovers (thank you, Enron and Govt.). What is up with this? The corporations cannot be made to be accountable for their own actions? It always gets passed down? This is horse hockey, folks. This is NOT the way it needs to work.
If anyone out there has a solar-assisted energy solution, and you find yourself with a surcharge, I would urge you to fight it. Take it as far into the system as you can. It is not right that we are researching ways to decrease our dependencies on the corporations, on the pollutant fuels, and ways to reduce our strain on the energy grid and still being penalized for it.
This has got to stop. (You have no idea of the restraint with which I am currently authoring this article.)
In the meantime, the Public Utilities Commission has voted that the public will not get relief from the higher rates, that the power companies will be bailed out at our expense. This comes as no surprise, really, considering that the Federal Energy Commission would not pay us restitution for the bilking that happened in 2000. Thank you, ****less leader, for your oh, so unprejudiced approach to government. Thank you, o administration, for your willingness to run the country instead of paying off your own self-interest.
Where does it stop?
More to the point, where can We The People start to make it stop?
There will always be the bullies, but it has been shown that sheer numbers of lesser beings can overpower them.
We're already in this war thing. Since we've already invested the money, we might as well go. Make it fast, take out the target, and get us back here in our respective individual pieces.
Oh, and without going into too much detail, the Total Information Awareness act and the Homeland Security Act can just take a long trip into a deep sewer.
To the soldiers fighting this war: Keep in mind that you are doing a job. I do not fault you, but I will remind you that you are no longer fighting for the America for which your forefathers fought. You are now fighting for an empire with a dubious lifespan unless we can seriously address the way in which we behave.
You are fighting for a dying way of life, but you are also fighting for the possibilities which come with a new way of life. This country must open its eyes and take care of its own before it can even consider taking care of anybody else.
Regime change begins at home.
