JULY 4TH INDEPENDENCE DAY - Enjoy It While You Can! And BE GRATEFUL!

Something tells me that July 4th will not be a holiday much longer.  The alleged desire for more "globalization," particularly while President Obama and his ilk rule the proverbial roost, portends a day in which almost any form of national pride will be looked upon as naive and, ultimately, immoral.  I don't argue with people that talk about America's mistakes, at least in terms of what those mistakes are.  America is an experiment and as with most experiments, it has had more than its share of explosions and injuries that could have been prevented.  What was done to the Native Americans, for example, seems almost totally inexcusable.  What I see many of America's accusers fail to acknowledge, however, is that - like slavery - the abuse of the Native Americans began LONG before America was actually a single nation and, technically, was perpetrated mostly by the English, French and Spanish.  However, the nation of the United States does bear its share of responsibility in that particular tragedy for what was done by people like President Andrew Jackson, who I think oversaw the displacement of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears.  There are also things like certain dubious motives for America's participation in overseas wars and other conflicts, particularly the Vietnam conflict (never officially declared a war by Congress) and, most recently, Iraq.  However, it strikes me that this was all made possible when, in the first years of the 20th century, presidents like Teddy Roosevelt and, later, Woodrow Wilson - one a Republican-turned-Bull Moose Independent, the other a Democrat that first tried to help form a version of the United Nations - began to think that America needed a more significant presence and a reputation of its own in world affairs. People can judge any way they wish, but it's a FACT that America became instrumental in winning two World Wars for its allies overseas and, in particular, for beating back the threat of the Nazis, who might otherwise have taken over most if not all of Western Europe and created a scenario which might have eventually threatened the United States, as well.  America didn't do it alone, but the war began in 1938, three years before America's involvement began, and the Nazi war machine was going strong at that time (Japan is a slightly different matter).

The fundamental reason I'm in favor of holidays like July 4th is that it reminds people to be GRATEFUL for something, and in the case of America, one of those things is the freedom to air such a long litany of complaints without excessive fear of reprisal from the State.  Unless I'm mistaken, China now forbids ANY celebration or recognition of the anniversary of the protests in Tienanmen Square,  Russia is slowly reverting back to its Soviet era habits of harassing and trying to occupy and possess its neighbors, such as the Ukraine and Georgia, which poses an indirect threat to Western Europe in part because that region relies a lot on things like natural gas from the East.  One can call America hypocritical and, at times, warlike, but in the end, I think it's done more significant good than harm to most of its citizens. After all, people are still coming here from all over the world, and do you see boatloads of Mexicans and South Americans headed for Cuba?  No.  They trek hundreds of miles sometimes on foot to reach the border of AMERICA - and you can argue that it's the more obvious and convenient choice, but by how much?

Speaking only for myself, I've seen nothing to suggest that I would have lived past my first week or two of life had I been born anywhere else, and the homeopathic or alternative medicine of the Far East would NOT have saved me from the conditions which required surgery and technology to correct.  The healthcare systems in some other countries may be cheaper, more accessible and even efficient to a degree, but from what I've heard, they're not all so flexible as to be able to devote enough time and attention to saving a single patient's life.  That's why I'm opposed to socialized medicine HERE (not everywhere) because no matter how well it is alleged to work in other nations, most of those nations deal with smaller, less diverse populations, and in the end, we're still talking about wholesale healthcare: First come, first serve and nothing done that isn't first approved for payment by the state.  My family has been in the healthcare business for 40 years and I've been in and out of hospitals as a patient my whole life.  So far, I've not heard ANYONE - not doctors, nurses or anyone actually working in the field - voluntarily say a single good thing about the Affordable Care Act or the prospect of socialized medicine.  Just recently, my father went to the emergency room, where a doctor talked a little about how he feared the Affordable Care Act's limitations in the near future on what they could do due to insurance restrictions meant to make it all less expensive.  Recently diagnosed with cancer, my father was even offered FREE CARE by an oncologist at Baptist (he can only really afford the VA, which is technically free but not very efficient or reliable and knew about his lung tumors a full year without saying anything), but was unable to get, the oncologist said, because the law prohibited any doctor from treating patients for free so long as they have Medicare, which my father does now that he's 65.      

I'm sure there are people that could come up with a thesis' worth of statistics and incident reports with which to argue against what I've just written, particularly when it comes to the above paragraph, but this whole blog boils down to the following: If you want to live in a place or a nation that doesn't have its share of sins and still have America's level of freedom and relatively low taxes, your best bet is probably to develop independent space travel so you can fly to a similar world whose population hasn't had time to make as many mistakes. People associate patriotism with nationalism, and nationalism with the warmongering attitudes of the Nazis and the former Soviet Union, who goose-stepped through history on the backs of their beleaguered and sometimes neglected citizenry and all over any and everyone they could find.  Almost every serious accusation leveled against America having to do with mistakes made since the end of the second World War comes back to similar behavior and, most notably, the "military industrial complex" first warned about, ironically, by Republican President and former general Dwight Eisenhower upon leaving office in 1960.

Yes, it is an unfortunate fact that nations like America have sometimes relied, whether intentionally or unintentionally, upon war and conflict to boost economies and world standing. However, this, at least, is not solely a flaw of the Americas.  Rome was born, lived and died on the fruits of war and of conquest. War was made just to keep Rome alive, as it needed territory and populations to conquer, rule over and tax to maintain its own opulence. Similar things could be said of the Spanish and of the English thereafter  The difference with the United States, I believe, is the freedom to acknowledge these imperfections and to at least try to avoid letting them get the better of us in the future.  They may be facts of U.S. history, but they need not be facts of our future just because we continue to be a nation unto ourselves.  As far as nationalism and national pride is concerned, I see it as being more about gratitude than anything else, with gratitude being a far healthier and more productive attitude than the nurturing of feelings of victimization and apocalyptic despair. Some may claim that this requires the convenient forgetting of America's "atrocities," but I disagree.  If anything, we can remember those atrocities and be GRATEFUL that, as a nation, we learned and/or are learning from those mistakes instead of letting them get us down. I also disagree with anyone that believes it to require a lot of naivete.  Does one have to believe themselves perfect and flawless in order to have self-esteem and to want to live?  If so, then I think we would all be suicidal - at least everyone of at least average intelligence.

If you're an American, living in America, then be GRATEFUL for that - if for no other reason than the fact that you have the freedom to complain if you wish!  If, of course, that's what you get off on, and believe me, I would understand.  A lot of people that come down the hardest on America claim also to be "humanist," but what is more human than being able to be as flawed as America allegedly is, yet still be able to learn from the past, stand up and march into the future with adjusted attitudes and new approaches?  Many are criticized for believing that America is the greatest nation on Earth, but frankly, I hope that everyone - no matter where they live - can have the luxury of believing that about their nation. The fact that the world is divided into nations does NOT, in my opinion, mean that we cannot work together.  All it means is that we acknowledge our differences, both voluntary and otherwise, and celebrate them while still having respect and getting along as best as possible.  The fact that we have differences also does not mean that they cannot be set aside to achieve common goals. I don't think humanity NEEDS one world order just to be able to work together.  To me, that's a defeatist way of looking at things because it says that we're so fundamentally divided, so flawed and relatively helpless that we need a super-strong, centralized power with global reach to affect change that can benefit everyone.  Yeah, that may seem to be the case once in a while, but does it have to be?  I don't think so.  If it's an example of anything, America is an example of how humans can do just about anything when they want to, and regardless of their differences considering that America is a nation built by immigrants from around the world. If you need a reason to celebrate July 4th and be grateful for America, then I can think of none better.

American Politics and Policies NEED Flexibility Again

I listened today to Rush Limbaugh saying that Democrats had tricked Republicans into believing that they need to accept and embrace more Democrat-like policies and ideas or else face extreme irrelevance for the foreseeable future. Thus, the divisions within the party.  Part of me agrees.  Another part, though, knows for a FACT that people who can't get elected also can't very well affect policy or stem the tide of unwanted change.  He also cited an allegedly liberal reporter that claims Democrats have what used to be the Republican edge because they now possess and exude OPTIMISM in the future which, for them, means optimism that more and more in American society are coming around to their way of seeing things and will accept their policies and ideas.  That's probably true, but this is America, so the question is... for how long?  I think Rush is right in that it IS a purely political tactic that has hurt Republicans by making a few of them second-guess their own conservatism.  That said, the effectiveness of that tactic suggests that there may be some truth there, as well - that, for better or worse, something's gotta give.  The fact that NOTHING appears on the verge of giving at the moment, on either side, is a large part of why I think the political atmosphere in America is, to so many, so poisoned at the moment.  

It doesn't look particularly new, but BOTH parties act more sincerely than ever, I believe, as if they know the CORRECT path for America, and that, I believe, is what is poisoning the pot, so to speak.  Why?  Because what both parties seem to refuse to see or acknowledge is that the experiment that is and always has been the United States is and has always been predicated upon the idea that there has never and will never be ONLY ONE, CORRECT PATH! It's the very essence of the "democracy" in our republic.  Unfortunately, both parties have abandoned a level of flexibility that I think has kept the American "experiment" afloat for most of its almost 250 years of formalized existence.  Sure, the goal in politics here as much as anywhere else has, on the surface, been solely to WIN and to advance one agenda over another, influencing policy for the long haul.  However, until recently, we've had enough Presidents and actual leaders in Washington with enough knowledge and experience to know the difference between campaign rhetoric and actual policy - the difference between what it takes to win an election versus what it takes to actually serve the best interests of Americans based on the needs of the moment as opposed to the needs of the party and/or its ideals.

Right now, I'm infuriated by the fact that I cannot see myself confidently voting for ANYONE between now and 2016.  Period.  Since Obama was elected (on a platform of unification, ironically), what had been a relatively slow swing further left and right for each of the parties suddenly went into overdrive. The ongoing rhetoric for which his voters seem to love him is increasingly and inherently skewed, contradictory and downright WRONG.  For example, he told a group of West Point cadets that he believed in American exceptionalism, but also that America should "affirm... international norms." (https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/28-2)  Dictionary.com defines exceptionalism as: "exceptionalism. a theory that a nation, region, or political system is exceptional and does not conform to the norm." (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exceptionalism) The Democrats used their short-lived majority in Congress to pass a convoluted form of healthcare reform that was not only designed initially by a conservative think tank, but was only ever used effectively as a political tool in one state. Many if not most Democrats only continue to support it (despite their assertions that it has actually STRENGTHENED insurance companies) because they hope that it is still a stepping stone towards socialized medicine.  Bin Laden is dead, and that's great, but in terms of foreign policy, the Iraq war ended ONLY because our military was denied immunity in cases of civilian deaths and collateral damage and, since then, AlQuaida's destabilization has almost completely undone any "progress" made there since Hussein's capture and execution.  Incidences of gun violence have skyrocketed and some of the first truly successful attacks by Islam-inspired terrorists, such as the Boston Marathon Bombings and the Benghazi incident, have occurred under the watch of a President that thinks the best way of protecting America is to flaunt its faults and weaknesses to ally and enemy, alike, and whose big mouth and incompetent new Secretary of State has indirectly led to the PROTECTION of a Syrian dictator by an emboldened Russian President that used one of our own newspapers to mock us (and Obama) and has since engaged in pro-Communist rhetoric and the military invasion of its neighbors such as the Ukraine.  Yes, under Obama, Russia seems to once again be our enemy FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A QUARTER CENTURY!  But here's what's almost as bad, if not worse.

The Republican Party has split in half and almost totally de-evolved into a horde of ideologues that can't keep their mouths shut long enough to accomplish anything good. Obama is a lame duck president, but as of, oh... three years ago... the Republicans' best bet, assuming they're right about the alleged disaster of where Obama is leading us, has been and would be to take a step back, LET OBAMA DO HIS JOB and then, if it really is the disaster they think it will be, they could actually have the FACTS at their disposal with which to prove it to voters. Instead, the Tea Party, which originally claimed to ONLY be about responsible fiscal policy, has roped in social conservatives, as well, and grown just big enough to where they can unseat more "mainstream" Republicans like Eric Cantor, yet - because of the division it has caused - does not have enough support to either regain a majority in the Senate, put a Republican in the White House or really strengthen the party's abysmally low-rated majority in Congress. The Tea Party has scared what few truly educated, experienced and level-headed Republicans we still have away from even wanting to run for office in this toxic political environment and replaced them with well-dressed Gomer Pyle-types (male AND female) that seem to think that having consistently worked a job, raised a family and maybe held the position of city councilman or town dog catcher somehow qualifies them to hold public office at the federal level.  It would be funny if it were not so pathetic, and don't get me started on the useless and potentially expensive government shutdown, presumably to affect a repeal of "Obamacare" which is NOT going to happen any time soon, if ever.

I remain a Republican for only a few reasons, and yes, their optimism is one of them.  No country is totally innocent and, so, of course, America has made mistakes; but as an experiment that seeks to give people a CHOICE of government by allowing and balancing an array of political, fiscal and social ideas and policies, it has (through various means, some of which have admittedly been morally ambiguous) attracted as many or more immigrants as just about any other nation on Earth, given them an environment in which to prosper and, since World War 2 at least, taken a place and exerted a level of influence on the world stage that has been virtually unrivaled since the time of the Roman Empire.  Only NOW is that threatened, I believe, by a focus on needy, confused, obstructionist and short-sighted politics... on BOTH SIDES.  Like sociopaths, the Democrats have seized on the air of confusion and helplessness that has griped Middle-America since the worst days of the Great Recession and USED it to gain power and advance a slightly more extreme version of their agenda, offering "social justice" as well as both social and economic "equality" through policies that simultaneously and systematically limit certain choices in people's personal lives, sap power from the private sector and INSULT their own minority and "poor" voters through things such as fighting the requirement of photo ID's at voting booths (because minorities and the poor simply CANNOT be expected to be able to acquire and/or remember such an easily attainable item).  The Republicans, meanwhile, have become almost wholly tone deaf when it comes to the kind of politics needed to win elections nowadays and have gone on the extreme defensive, claiming loyalty and what amounts to abstract OWNERSHIP of personal liberty, economic freedoms and ideals which, in fact, have been threatened more or less since the days of George Washington.  

But, as I tried to imply earlier, that's the beauty of America.  It has its ideals and its core values and, yet, treating them like playing cards, it knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em.  At least, it used to. The Roosevelts - Republican AND Democrat - exemplified this. Teddy, a Republican, outlawed monopolies, implemented restrictions and regulations on the banks and dragged the U.S. kicking and screaming into world affairs.  Franklin Roosevelt used Pearl Harbor to justify a 360 degree turn away from the isolationist rhetoric he knew all along to be wrong in order to go to the aid of Europe in the second World War.  Eisenhower, a general and Republican President, spent money to build America's interstate highway system and warned AGAINST the very military industrial complex of which he was arguably a part.  Nixon opened trade with China and went against his party's grain in allowing the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Fiscally conservative Reagan out-bluffed and outspent the Soviet Union with "Star Wars" to help end the Cold War and Bush, Sr., went against his campaign slogan to raise taxes when necessary. Flexibility used to be an acknowledged, embraced and tolerated element of American politics as well as policy.  Now, though, it's been replaced by two sets of almost equally dangerous extremes.   

ABOUT OBAMA'S DEFENSE OF THE POLICIES OF HIS WHICH HE SAYS ARE SO "IN LINE" WITH MUCH OF AMERICANS' THINKING

I just found this article about Obama's latest attempt to defend his policies, particularly his foreign policy, and to reassert how popular they are with a majority of Americans.  It's here:  http://news.yahoo.com/obama-us-must-lead-globally-show-restraint-142911123--politics.html  First and foremost, though, I have to wonder why a President that is already into the second year of his last term in office feels the need to so vehemently defend a set of policies that he also believes are already popular with a majority of Americans, but I digress.  I'm going to start by examining individual quotes from Obama and the article.

1.) "Obama cast the bloody civil war in Syria as more of counter terrorism challenge than a humanitarian crisis."

So... there's a difference? I guess it's not a matter of IF thousands of people are being killed by their government, but HOW it is being done. Or is it something else?

2.) "One plan being considered by the White House is a project to train and equip members of the Free Syrian Army on tactics, including counterterrorism."

Yes, because that has worked out SO WELL in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Frankly, I agree with Obama's statement that the U.S. should not rush to intervene militarily in every conflict around the world.  That said, you shouldn't publicly threaten something that everyone knows you don't want to and most likely will not do.  That, however, is exactly what Obama did when he gave Syria's government the ultimatum on chemical weapons and the treatment of its people and then failed to adequately enforce that ultimatum when the due date came and went, giving people like Russian President Vladimir Putin - who everyone knows is ex-KGB and who has never had a truly comfortable relationship with the United States - an opportunity to not only intervene and protect the Assad dictatorship in which Russia seems to have some stake in preserving (which is what is being done by the treaty Putin helped design, making it virtually impossible to enforce by banning U.S. and/or western military intervention), but to also and very publicly make Obama and the United States look foolish in the eyes of the very global community that Obama thinks he's leading with things like the letter of Putin's that was published in the Washington Post, I think, not long thereafter.

On that note...

3.) "He [Obama] challenged skeptics who see that approach as a sign of weakness and argued instead that it instead highlights America's ability to lead on the world stage."  

In fact, Obama isn't "leading" anyone anywhere else around the world.  Rather, he admires the European Union and other nations and seeks to lead America to that particular well, not the other way around.  The idea that America should maintain its exceptional-ism, yet still preserve global "norms" is inherently contradictory.  By definition, you CANNOT be exceptional and still be entirely normal.  It doesn't work that way.  Either America is a contender and a competitor or it is not.

Oh, and by the way, even if Obama's policies are or were more in line with the interests and the thinking of the majority of Americans, that doesn't make them either good or effective.  After all, a majority of Americans favored going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan in the days after 9/11, giving Bush an approval rating in the 80's before doing anything more than talking and forcing the Democratic minority in the House and Senate to go along with something they would later protest vehemently.  Look how that turned out.  Despite everyone's short term memories, Americans also enjoyed Bush's big tax cuts for EVERYONE, allowing just about as many in the middle class as in the upper to squander their money on homes and other things they couldn't afford (artificially driving up housing prices until nobody could afford anything) and going into untold amounts of debt because everyone just assumed they'd be able to pay it off later.  Look how that turned out.

Granted, the Obama administration oversaw the finding and killing of Osama Bin Laden, and that's great.  However, since Obama came into office, we've also seen some of the first truly SUCCESSFUL Islam-motivated terrorist attacks on our soil (Boston Marathon Bombings) and/or on our officials (embassy in Libya) since 9/11 and managed to make a budding enemy out of Russia, one of the largest and most well-armed nations on earth, AGAIN... even as we sit back and watch its leader, emboldened in part by Obama's reckless speechifying and posturing, lead his country with the widespread approval of the Russian people in what many believe to be an inexorable trek back to Communism and a policy of invading and overpowering its neighbors.  Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like if Russia went back to being Communist and teamed up with, say... China, also a Communist nation (more or less) that practically owns the United States economy. Given that Europe has pretty much been able to do absolutely NOTHING to prevent or to mitigate this, tell me how and why America's adherence to "global norms" is a good thing?

Whether right or wrong, it sounds to many, including me, like Obama is and/or wants to make America every bit as weak and ineffectual as the rest of the world.  If so, then so far, he seems to be succeeding.  

THE CONFUSED AND CHAOTIC MESSAGE OF AMERICAN TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY

LINK: PETITION AFTER A 22 YEAR-OLD'S PROTEST ON YOUTUBE CONVINCES KATY PERRY TO SELF-CENSOR FOR MUSLIMS

Tonight, I saw the above story about Katy Perry's self-censorship of a new music video because of an online petition stemming from if not started by the protests of a 22 year-old Muslim that demanded the video be removed from YouTube because a piece of jewelry worn by Perry as part of an ancient Egyptian costume is blasphemous to Allah.  Granted, this is the result of a petition that led to the artist's voluntary compliance with its demand(s), but I am still angered because of the way this represents what I see as the current chaos and hypocrisy that surrounds our ongoing and ever increasing efforts to become more "tolerant," multicultural and diverse. Does nobody see what's going on here?  This doesn't strike me as a sincere protest from an honest victim of anything.  It's yet another ridiculous incident which pushes buttons and uses modern-day Americans' desperate need to feel more "tolerant" and "multicultural" to actually make us look like petty, immature fools.

Culturally, America has all but lost its identity in its struggle to fully understand and comply with the text and spirit of its own Constitution and Bill of Rights.  As the Patty Hearst of nations, at least in the West, its collective case of Stockholm Syndrome has made it fearful and beholden in cases like this to the very people and culture that effectively launched one of if not the most devastating attacks on American soil by a foreign enemy in September of 2001 - and which has continued to make and attempt attacks both successful and failed. We're still a nation in which, statistically, Christianity holds sway, and why not? By itself, that fact says nothing about the tolerance of the average, individual American for others, and no matter what their personal preferences, beliefs or social affiliations, most Christians in America of any race or income bracket are law-abiding citizens that, at most, seek only to live and work in peace, secure in the same rights that are afforded to others and which have historically been theirs all along.  In a time when so many are calling for America to be more like the "rest of the world," I also think it's noteworthy to point out that many nations still identify largely if not entirely with specific religions and denominations therein: India to Hindu beliefs and Buddhism, Pakistan to Islam, Russia and Greece to Christian Orthodoxy, Italy and much

of the Latin World to Catholicism, etc., etc.  And while I'm not an expert, I have read a few articles, seen ARGO and a few foreign policy documentaries, so I am aware of a string of particularly noteworthy foreign policy blunders in the Middle East during the mid-to-late 20th century in places like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.  Some would love explain if not outright justify the current trend of Islamic terrorism on America by blaming it for the crimes and neglects of certain Middle Eastern dictators and religious leaders behind which the American government put its support - likely for economic reasons - but by now, it's nothing more than a pathetic smokescreen that only exists because our spineless government lets it exist without much protest. 

Most leaders in the Middle East appear to have had Islam to at least partially back up, protect and reinforce their claims to power. They have used the religion's tenets and taken them to the extreme in order to solidify and often abuse that power over a populous that can't seem to decide whether or not it wants to potentially give up the prospect of 72 virgins in order to buck any number of corrupt and, on the surface, theocratic dictatorships.  The Arab Spring was heralded three years ago in places like Egypt, where it arguably began, but Egypt overthrew the dictator Mubarak - who kept his country on good terms with the U.S., yet had a bad human rights record - only to hold elections in which they replaced him with the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt's people almost immediately threw out before the military swooped in to run things until someone new is elected. Iran has a new leader, yet talks over their nukes only ever seem to protect the status-quo, and outside the Muslim world, the European Union has seen mostly economic threats to its effectiveness and legitimacy while Russia flirts with its Cold War ways under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.  That ex-KGB thug used Obama's own empty promises about Syria and the Assad regime to make an even greater fool out of an American President before basically forcing America to comply with the effective protection of Syrian Dictator Assad's abusive, genocidal regime just so long as it doesn't have chemical weapons. It was accomplished with Putin's demand that any agreement with Syria over said chemical weapons forbid the use of a military effort to enforce it - especially an American or European military effort - effectively rendering said agreement almost entirely unenforceable in my opinion.

Is this the 'rest of the world" that America is supposed to be more like?  Because if so, then I might just call for a return to isolationism - economy be damned.  The way I see it, this story is just an extension of those kinds of attitudes nowadays in America. Where Islam, in particular, is concerned, understand that in instances such as this, Americans are going out of their way to avoid offending a cultural and religious group whose citizens of America stay almost wholly silent and inactive while the rest of America lives under the constant threat that one or more of them here or overseas might turn terrorist and not only kill us, but - as seems to happen nowadays - actually force America under the microscope and into becoming the big defendant by subjecting the country to scrutiny over the way in which it handles said terrorists. Meanwhile, we have a strong and growing anti-bullying movement going on which, on principle, I support - yet, interestingly enough, a majority of those appearing in commercials for the movement, whether celebrity or otherwise, seem to be members of a "minority," non-White ethnic group.  Should I behave like that 22 year-old Muslim and start angrily accusing the anti-bullying movement of what is euphemistically called "reverse racism" by basically implying that most, if not all bullies, racists and homophobes are white and, more specifically, white males? From where I'm sitting, if I did that, I would at least have some empirical evidence to suggest some such true motivation whereas, in Perry's case, we're talking about a pop star with virtually no public stance on current events to speak of that basically admits to having just picked the jewelry because it looked good and she wanted to use it to entertain.  Period.

    

In its heart of hearts, I don't think the world at large really cares how tolerant or progressive America is except and perhaps only when it affects the way its people are treated as immigrants to America.  I doubt the world cares how it all reflects on America's leadership status since so many seem to resent the very fact that America remains such a powerful world leader.  After all, so much of the world is still behaving in fairly intolerant ways not only towards Americans and Christians (and even Jews in America's ally Israel - again), but towards their neighbors in general, regardless of culture or ethnicity. There seems to be a strengthening anger and resentment - whether directly connected or not - towards and surrounding the fact that, as dominated by "white" corporate, Judeo-Christian culture as it allegedly remains, America is sill so influential and powerful, culturally and militarily, despite its growing list of obvious inner turmoils. In fact, this is something that has been steadily building since as far back as the end of the second World War, but it has taken on a whole new air of legitimacy, I think, with the advent of multimedia and especially the Internet.  So many different people now stand a more equal chance of being seen, heard, believed and generally represented for their viewpoints because of the World Wide Web.

In the past, the medium was the message because only a few people really controlled one or two dominant mediums, which were used to convey news and ideas, and those people generally exploited those mediums to get their own basic messages across sometimes.  First, it was the press or, more specifically, the newspaper, which managed to exponentially increase its circulation and influence with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the electrical presses and the motorized vehicles used to put out more papers in more places, more often, in less time and with more up-to-date reporting.  In the first half of the 20th century, most major newspapers were controlled by only a handful of people and conglomerates, with William Randolph Hearst's being one of if not the most significant up until the 1950's. More local and privately-owned papers would take their cues from the big guys. Then, there was television, a more expensive and more corporately controlled medium which was really an extension of radio and, to at least some degree, of Hollywood, itself.  The networks and news programs were headed up by editors and managers with strong, admirable beliefs about a free and honest press for "the people" and simultaneously similar beliefs to the predominantly liberal Hollywood establishment (even while it was being censored and under scrutiny by more conservative elements). Still, those were the two major mediums for public opinion that remained fairly separated and, for the most part, carved America up into a much, much smaller handful of groups and different political and ideological perspectives. That lasted until and even into the 1980's and early 1990's, when cable television and networks such as CNN began to seriously threaten newspapers as well as traditional network and local television, yet it also foreshadowed the next big leap which has been the Internet and its World Wide Web. 

Now, instead of just a few powerful and influential news outlets remaining largely untouched and uninfluenced by individual readers and viewers, the Internet is affecting an unprecedented merging of the mediums and granting almost totally free and unfettered access to everyone - with both good and bad results. It is the ultimate expression of free speech and yet, hearkening back to Elia Kazan's 1957 film A Face In The Crowd starring the late Andy Griffith as radio and TV personality Lonesome Rhodes, the world of the 21st century is filled with "Lonesome Rhodes" clones, especially in America and along various points on the political and ideological spectrum. Most are fairly innocuous and merely catering to their small crowds of followers. Yet the consequences of their collective efforts is, for better or worse, the astounding level of divisiveness that we're seeing in America now. It has had the unfortunate and somewhat mind-boggling effect of both empowering and hamstringing so many people at the same time that almost nobody can really lead effectively and make any real progress and, instead, almost everyone looks like a potential obstructionist and ideological villain.

As usual, government is an easy scapegoat for just about any national problem, but now more than ever, most politicians have increasingly little to gain by adopting a steady and reasonable position on the issues which represents a majority of their regions' constituents.  Whether Republican or Democrat, it is no longer as simple as having to represent and appeal to the people of your party.  Now, you have to decide which one or two small, usually fringe groups within your party are the loudest and most likely to vote because if you can't get re-elected, you're really not going to be able to do anything no matter what rhetoric you adopt. It is why we're seeing such different and sometimes radical behavior work for both Democrats and Republicans in DC.  President Obama definitely represents not only the Democratic Party, but arguably a good deal of the political left in America.  Though his actual effectiveness and track record so far on perceptibly partisan issues such as the environment, income inequality and even race relations has been sketchy and criticized by his own people, the strengthening in his second term of his fairly consistent and well-spoken political rhetoric has ensured that whichever way the polls shift from time to time, America on-the-whole remains fairly receptive if not wholly committed to his agenda.  On the flip-side, though, is the Republican Party, which has seen a string of hard losses in the last two or more Presidential and Senatorial elections amidst an unprecedented fracturing of the party between the older, slightly more moderate "mainstream" and the fairly new and often radically conservative Tea Party and other small groups (including some Libertarians).  Yet, despite record low approval ratings, the party continues to hold and is actually expected to continue holding a firm majority's control in the House.   

This is why our wires are so crossed in places like America, even when it comes to our more noble and moral endeavors - endeavors that are becoming increasingly stained by little hypocrisies and inconsistencies, whether real or more opportunistically imagined.  As the country becomes more tolerant of some things, it is becoming less tolerant of other things - even those otherwise good things which used to define us in ways with which, at the very least, most of the world had little or no outward problem. The worst part, though, is how little responsibility we, "the people," take for the very issues of divisiveness, hostility and, yes, intolerance that we claim to protest. Instead, we seem more comfortable blaming politicians and faceless corporations for a phenomena that is an inherent extension of our own cherished democracy. In my experience, some of the same people that will go online and use Christians and Christianity in particular as the embodiment of outdated and narrow-minded superstition - which, they say, all modern and "civilized" peoples must eventually leave behind - will also sign petitions such as this one.  Likewise, they'll defend fairly extensive and exhaustive university curriculum having to do with foreign and/or Eastern religions and lifestyles such as Islam for the sake of "diversity" while using the same old accusations of racism and bigotry to excuse the banning of any and all "conservative," Christian speakers on a campus.  Make no mistake, though - the courses are not merely educational, as they are known to involve the temporary, yet mandatory adoption of religious tradition and lifestyle habits on the part of the students for a grade.  This is how my half-sister was converted to Islam in the late 1980's.  Meanwhile, many public schools are pretty much prohibited nowadays from teaching anything resembling creationism as a valid, alternative perspective on the Earth's origins.  Creationism, of course, is also strongly if not solely associated with Christianity despite applying, as a theory, to any number of religious perspectives around the world regardless of which god is alleged to have done the creating.

As of now, there is a decision to be made which I do not believe the government can make for us.  Especially for Americans, that decision is whether or not our increased tolerance, respect and multiculturalism is genuine and real, applying to everything as fairly and evenly as humanly possible, or whether it's really just a euphemism for the systematic rejection and undoing of certain "uniquely American" traditions and beliefs, and why?  Because America's demographics are changing and, no matter what we say, there is never really going to be room for every religious, political and ideological face in the crowd. If it's the former, then things like this have to stop - or, at the very least, the press, the government and pretty much anyone online has to stop giving them so much legitimacy through public visibility.  Having acknowledged its mistakes, America needs to act on what it has learned, yet finally put away its collective guilt so that it can continue being the strong, yet inclusive nation to which immigrants around the world have been attracted for centuries.

In conclusion, things like this petition and Katy Perry's response are not representative of progress, but of increasing amounts of wanton self-doubt and of fear. As I implied at the beginning, imagine if every Christian in America reacted that way every time the name of God or Jesus was used in vain in movies and television. There would be no end to the turmoil and petitions, but apparently, we're so screwed up and confused that we have to cater and cow-tow en-mass to the oh, so fragile beliefs and sensibilities of a religious group which is fundamentally intolerant of people of other faiths and, if we're honest, anti-Semitic to the core!  This is why the modern movement for expanded tolerance and diversity is so hypocritical and screwed up - because almost no religion, group or individual as outwardly and universally rigid, quasi-sexist and specifically anti-Semitic as Islam or most sincere Muslims would be tolerated in the mainstream world for very long, let alone patronized in this manner. 

Regarding WOLF OF WALL STREET's Record-Setting Use of the F-Word

Regarding the new movie The Wolf of Wall Street in an article I found on Yahoo!: "According to Wikipedia, the word “f--k” is used 506 times over The Wolf of Wall Street's 180-minute running time."

What I want to know is: Why?  I know the "real world" doesn't resemble a 19th century tea room in Buckingham Palace, but does Hollywood really think that this sort of excessive vulgarity is ALWAYS realistic - or even amusing?  Because, well... I don't... and I've heard plenty of people that used the F-word frequently in their speech.  If nothing else, it comes down to this: Even movies with realistic themes and believable emotions are not necessarily at their most effective while simultaneously being the most "realistic."  As a writer, it occurs to me that such language and other devices have become crutches in the decade since the death of the Hays Code in the late 1960's - excuses for lazy writing, a lack of general creativity or even for just not knowing how to otherwise or as effectively convey an emotional idea.  I've also seen plenty a "hard-R" rated movie praised as Oscar worthy when the only significant elements absent from other, supposedly less worthy, less realistic or even less "artistic" movies are their frequent instances of vulgarity, whether it be language or even sexual explicitness.  Even if you removed morality from the equation, you're still left with whether or not it is always or even usually necessary or effective and, I think, most would, if honest, say, "No."

A few years ago, I noticed that Alfred Hitchcock's original Psycho is actually rated R.  Now, that ratings system didn't actually exist in 1960 and different copies for sale may indicate differently, but at least one copy of the film that I've seen has it bearing an R rating.  This was arguably the first American slasher movie - albeit so much more... beneath the skin, so to speak - and it still generates controversy going beyond the sheer intensity of the inventively disconcerting shower slaying into the sometimes incestuous territory of Norman's sexuality, not to mention the more minor issues of would-be infidelity and whether or not the ends justify the means when Marion ("Mary" in the book) steals the money. While I'm on the subject, I've read Robert Bloch's original and very short novel and can recall hardly any cursing in it whatsoever. Though the movie takes its share of liberties, it pretty much follows the same story line give or take some details, mostly related to Norman's characterization.

Even if I did not have my distaste for the current trend of blaming Wall Street for everyone's financial woes, I now think I'll avoid this movie.  Don't get me wrong: I like Scorsese and I even like Oliver Stone's original movie, Wall Street, but I will not succumb to the idea that I'm missing out on some incredibly enlightening, intellectual or even entertaining cinematic experience by not seeing this movie.  Frankly, at this point, it doesn't even appear to be all that original in terms of its approach to the themes and subject matter.  After all, when was the last time we saw a movie about a GOOD person that worked on Wall Street?  By that, I mean genuinely good, not just some endearingly flawed character that has to ultimately reject his lucrative job to find some proletariat's idea of redemption.

Whatever the perceived realities and opinions related to this issue, for me, excessive vulgarity anywhere - in art or in life - is unnecessary and represents a fundamental lapse in intelligent thought and expression.

I WONDER... ARE GOOD, DECENT AMERICANS SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING RICHER OR POORER THESE DAYS?

I just now caught Sunday's edition of the Times Union laying around and in a section ironically entitled "Reason," there's an article about the "Rise of the New Rich" - and it's written, albeit subtly, as if this is a problem. It classifies the "new rich" as upper-middle-class, making $250,000 per year or more at some point in their lives, but often falling below that threshold later on.  The article is full of subtle contradictions, going from reminding us that these people still tend to be white but, later, saying that they also tend to have more non-whites and be more politically diverse, at least when it comes to social issues.  In fact, their featured, interviewed and photographed example of a "new rich" person is a professional African American man! What confuses me is this: Morally and on the whole, are Americans supposed to get richer or poorer?

I'm confused because whenever there is data to suggest that ANYONE is suddenly doing better economically these days, it's treated more like some new symptom of income disparity than as the good thing it really is.  Since the last recession, the attitude seems to be that since the majority of people suffered and are unlikely to ever have it even as good as they did before, anyone that doesn't fall into that category is an almost intolerable exception and must be greedy and/or lacking in compassion and understanding.  At the moment, I'm pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, but if anyone is to blame for that, it's me.  What's more, nothing that Wall Street or any corporation can do is possible unless WE let them do it - unless WE incur the debt that's sold and WE conveniently ignore what should obviously be deals that are too good to be true... like "no down payment for 2 years" crap that basically counts on the buyer becoming complacent, NOT paying things off in the 2 year time frame and, in most cases, accruing enough interest and potential fees that they wind up paying almost twice as much in the long run. The worst part, of course, is that we live in an age in which the average homeless person can walk into a library or an Internet cafe and access a world's worth of information on pretty much every topic in sight.  So, if knowledge is power, then why are so many with so much access to knowledge also so allegedly powerless?  With information so readily available and accessible, how is ignorance any excuse?

What these articles often fail to mention - perhaps intentionally - is that, for the most part, long-term wealth is NOT all about high levels of income but about management, which is why a raise in the minimum wage isn't likely to do much good and why uproar over the so-called income gap that President Obama says will be a major issue next year is such bunk.  The rich are often characterized as people that stockpile and hoard money, but hoarded money tends to lose value in relation to the ever-rising cost of living.  The rich can only stay rich most of the time by investing their money in something that will replenish it.  This, to be sure, is not the same as buying a bunch of junk that loses at least half its value immediately upon first purchase and then excusing it as collecting.  It may not go towards philanthropy, but how philanthropic can ANYONE be with money they don't have!  How much can you pay in taxes if you don't have  much money to tax to begin with? Historically, redistributed wealth simply means that you lose that upper-class and its reservoir of funds, which generally causes a problem later on when it becomes more and more expensive for whatever government is doing the redistribution to keep their promises and suitably take care of what are often growing populations.

Per the income gap - yes, there has been a loss of traditionally middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, which this article cites.  A lot of it, I suspect, simply has to do with the side effect of improving technology taking the place of some workers.  Be that as it may, the more you earn, the more you can potentially spend, and if you spend all your money - no matter how much that is - you're left with little or no money.  Period. That goes for the rich CEO as much as it does for the burger-flipper behind the drive-thru, and it's a fact no matter how either side of the political line tries to complicate matters.  I've known educated, hard-working people go from great wealth to bankruptcy and poverty while others with barely a high-school education and a middle-class income, at best, wind up retiring better off financially than many successful entrepreneurs.  These are people that have managed or not managed well over the course of years and decades on end, through economic up's and downs and whether DC was controlled by Democrats or Republicans. It is - or, rather, it should and CAN be - the beauty of a free market economy that, with few exceptions, individuals and their families need not be slaves to the consequences of actions on the parts of people they don't and will likely never meet or know.   Only when a society loses sight of that and starts feeling sorry for itself during down times or when too many have made mistakes with consequences that they are unable or unwilling to deal with is it in danger of turning that much-maligned "income gap" into a whole society of people neither rich nor poor because ALL are living below, at or just barely above what once was the poverty level.

So, again, what is the desired outcome here: For people to have more money or less?  Because if you're going to complain when people suffer from poverty and income disparity, it seems STUPID to also complain when others - however few - start doing well. If anything else, the most liberal, tax-hike-loving person in America NEEDS those rich guys to be able to pay most of the higher taxes to fund the social "safety nets."  

WHY WE ALL TALK POLITICS! + MY GOALS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Growing up, I was always hearing older family members talk not only about history of the past, but current events, as well.  It rubbed off and manifested in my affinity as an adult for following and talking about current events and, particularly, what's called "politics" here in America (and sometimes elsewhere).  Nobody has really held that against me - why would they?  However, on occasion, my mother, for example, would frown at my timing.  You know how it goes - one doesn't talk politics at the dinner table, etc.  I was always a little confused about that.  I understood wanting to avoid unnecessary social tension at what are meant to be cordial gatherings and such, but how can people not grow bored talking about meaningless trivialities?  I eventually came to realize that it wasn't politics that people were avoiding, but disagreement.  They simply did not want the conflict, but to avoid politics altogether?  That, in fact, is impossible.

It all comes down to how we define the word, "politics."  Do you live in a community with others?  Have you talked with others in your community?  Have you had to buy, sell, trade or otherwise come to some kind of an agreement with somebody else, either within your community or another's?  If so, then you've engaged in politics, and you've certainly talked politics, too.

Most people associate politics with issues of governance, which affect a great many people in different ways within the same group and can be sensitive topics because of their dramatic, long lasting and far reaching implications.  However, Merriam Webster has a slightly expanded definition of politics as being, "...the total complex of relations between people living in society."  In other words, you cannot be social and not engage in politics.  For that matter, you cannot live in the modern world, period, and not engage in pure, unadulterated politics.  After all, relations are interactions and societies are little more than organized groups of people sharing values and property.

Coming up on the New Year, I plan to put this blog to greater and better use.  It's been languishing virtually untouched for about a year now - more, really - and if I'm going to accomplish any of the goals I have set for myself, that has to change.  Be warned, though, that even when I'm talking about things like movie production, I'll be talking about it in a political context.  Why?  Because as an art form, movie making is probably as political as it gets.  To do it as most conceive of it being done, in order to tell a story with actors in front of  a camera and so forth, you have to have something of a political mind and take a slightly political approach.  Whether you're at the top or the bottom of the proverbial chain, you're engaged in an activity that is fundamentally rooted in somebody's ideas and opinions which are, nevertheless, being interpreted and brought to life by a group of individuals that likely have slightly different viewpoints and ideas about how to go about everything.  If you're at the top, you have to be flexible and adaptable while still representing something of a cohesive vision and capable of leading everyone towards a common goal.  If you're at the bottom, it seems as if you need only do what you're told, but in the process, you may have to do things you don't want to do or in ways you don't want to do them, and unless you don't mind losing your job, you have to be able to deal that fact and deal with those in charge without either letting yourself be run over or stepping out of bounds.

My primary goals for the New Year is to successfully launch The Woodlane Council, which I initially conceive as simply a gathering of people - preferably professionals from different key sectors of the local economy - coming together online, at first, to discuss how and why more and better motion picture productions in the region and a better standing for that region in the film and entertainment industry can be accomplished and achieved and can even benefit those that seem to have no stakes in "the business" whatsoever. By motion picture, though, I don't just mean those for the big screen or even television.  I also mean those distributed and marketed online, which nowadays represents a great opportunity in an ever-expanding market even for those with generally fewer resources because of the availability and cost-effectiveness of the resources offered online.  My overall motivation hinges on a problem I've seen for years in the so-called "film making community" of which I've tried with varying degrees of success to be a part of for over ten years now, and that is an attitude of exclusivity and of basically deserving opportunities and recognition that has not yet been earned... either because, when confronted, they say it's too difficult or they just don't have time (etc., etc.).

When some writers and directors, in particular, are told to treat their work "like a business," they are mortified.  They instantly think of art-by-committee, watered down by purely commercial interests into drivel with no other meaning or purpose save for conformity and the maintenance of a certain comfort level for the less sophisticated, less discriminating masses. To some extent and, perhaps, in still too many instances, they're right. A LOT of what the professional industry puts out is very much about identifying a trend in the general public and following it to the letter over and over again to where certain types of movies almost seem to self-replicate for years on end, differentiated only by minor details such as the names of actors and characters and little details here and there in the plots and stories.  That said, treating it like a business simply means that you care about being able to do what you do well, over and over, and about how many customers you have and how many people you reach with your product and, in this case, your message.  The fact is that if your goal really is to say something new and meaningful and worth being seen and heard, you really risk wasting your time if you do not do whatever you can to get that message before as many people as possible.  That requires the sometimes difficult task of delivering your newer and perhaps controversial message in a more familiar and comfortable package.  Yet, it's a task that pretty much every successful film maker and producer has had to master for almost a hundred years now.

All of it comes down to politics, which is less about the message, itself, than about how that message is relayed.  In communications, we're taught the widely accepted idea that, "The medium is the message," which I interpret to mean that the way in which you're putting your message out - whether through movies, music, still imagery or the written word - you have to do so in a way which ensures that people will accept the medium first so that, hopefully, they'll get the message in the process.  If your message is in music, you make sure it's being delivered via good music by a musician.  If it's in literature, then you make sure that you or whoever is writing it for you knows how to write well.  If it's in photographs or a painting, you need to be or employ a good photographer or painter.  Whatever the case, the effectiveness of the message has a lot to do with how it is delivered. Once that is accepted, you stand a greater chance that message will be accepted.  This, finally, is politics: The way in which you deal with others to get across what you have to say and do what you have to do.

Although their reasons are understandable, I believe that too many people where I live that WANT to make movies, for example, and want the community to have a better standing in the movie making industry and to attract more and bigger productions from Hollywood so as to create better opportunities and more resources, but they don't want to get into the politics of it.  They bemoan their shortage of resources, but they don't want to go to anyone that they don't know or that isn't "in the business," as it were, to ask for help because they either think it's a waste of time or they simply do not want other, less knowledgeable hands reaching into the proverbial pot.  Instead, they do the next best thing and go to the government, whose goal is always to generate more income for their communities, so they beg for tax incentives and such to attract the big Hollywood productions that accomplish the politicians' goals of helping put more more money into the local economy, but that don't stay long because our shortage or absence of industry-grade facilities and don't hire many, if any locals because by the time they get here, they already have everyone they need and can usually only hire unionized workers, anyway.  Alas, most film production people and people here, in general, are, by and large, non-union - and they stay that way because they cannot find the work they need to gain the experience and credibility to earn meaningful union membership.

In conclusion, I believe that people need to have a more inclusive definition of the word, "politics," because the word really does have a much broader meaning than most people believe.  In the process, it also needs to lose its stigma of being associated almost solely with conflict and embraced as the only means to pretty much any social end.  Part of my task with the Woodlane Council will be to motivate others like me, that are into film production and/or want to engage in meaningful film production, to join with "non-industry" people in the rest of the region to be more political and enter into a mode of communication and of give-and-take with the only source of support really accessible to them at the moment IF they'll properly seek it out: The surrounding community.  After all, movies aren't just made by writers, directors, actors and technical crew.  They employ lawyers, accountants, drivers, cooks, security personnel, advertisers, public relations people, artists, carpenters, electricians, plumbers... need I go on?  When George Lucas formed Industrial Light and Magic in the mid 1970's to make the first STAR WARS film, a majority of the people that worked there had little or no experience in motion pictures whatsoever.  They were simply people that could do things - draftsmen that could draw up concepts and plans, people that could build, put parts together, etc.  Most were just college kids needing a job, hired to do nothing but recycle model kits in order to paint and glue together pieces to eventually form TIE-Fighters and X-Wings.

Ultimately, my motivation is my desire to have what I need to make movies, but getting to that place is going to require something on the order of a political discussion and a political... campaign, of sorts! Wish me luck. ;)