Tonight I’m trying to think of a good metaphor which would represent my thoughts about how TOTALLY SCREWED UP the United States of America has become. And, this is coming from a person who has voted in every election since 1968, who feels privileged to have been born in America, and who, at one time, enlisted in the US Marine Corp to help “save” us from communism during the now infamous Viet Nam Fiasco. I participated in the protest marches of the 60’s aimed at the Civil Rights movement. Oh, how things have changed since then. Essentially, I’ve spent my lifetime absorbing the same “brainwashing” that every other American has been absorbing about how we are the “savior” of the world. Seemingly, every other nation on earth is “third world” compared to us. We have evolved into a nation which is being eaten alive – from the inside out – by the very forces which we’ve been convinced we should believe in. And, more than that, the diversity which is represented by the moniker “The Melting Pot” is evolving to the point where those who are in control are desparately trying to retain their “hold” on our society and the incredible wealth they’ve managed to siphon out of the system in the past 30 years.

Some of what I’m observing would be laughable if it were in a movie – but some stark realities are FINALLY setting in for me. The discourse of this great nation has become so absurd that I’m confident if I was a true journalist I could come up with example after example of “truths” which would indicate we are a nation in decline – essentially, we’re shooting ourselves in our own feet. The beauty of our system of government is that, ideally, we the people have the ultimate authority to get things “back on track,” but the very nature of the technological advances we’ve made in the past 30 years are making that “job” MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. We have a President who is a VERY GOOD PERSON – there is no doubt in my mind about that – I’m just not sure that he “gets” the gravity of the situation. Instinctively, I have to believe he does, but today I watched as he participated in the so-called “beer summit” with the Cop who STUPIDLY arrested a man (the fact the man is Black and the fact that the President characterized the arrest in what I would call “mild” terms – isn’t the point here – the point is how the “enemy within” is spinning this – along with anything else they can spin – to try to destroy the President’s credibility with no concern for the health of this nation) in his own home after he showed ID. The man was arrested for evidently giving the Cop “what for” for entering his home illegally. I’m trying not to get sidetracked here, so – my main point – I saw President Obama as an excellent mediator in an attempt to mitigate the reaction he received from the right wing fringe for calling an act by police as “stupid” – EVEN THOUGH IT WAS STUPID! Yes, the Cop seems like a good man – but the truth is he SCREWED UP AND LIED TO COVER UP HIS MISTAKE – and because the so-called “race card” was involved we see everyone “tiptoeing” around the real issues involved in a case that realistically should have never been more than a local issue in Cambridge Mass. I’m OK with the dialogue about Police abusing their “power” and how it affects the Black Community (and other minorities) – I’m just not OK with our President feeling like he has to walk the political tightrope because of the reaction to his statement from the right wing “nut jobs.”

It’s time we call this what it is – a battle for the heart and soul of this great nation. And, believe me, this battle will not be won by a bunch of timid “progressives.” The “enemy” (which, if you don’t know me from previous posts is the right wing of the Republican party) has no conscience when it comes to the words spewing from their mouths. It has gotten to the absurd and this little issue with the Harvard Professor being cuffed and taken down town because evidently he wasn’t subservient to the Cop who arrested him is just a microcosm of the challenge all of us who actually believe in the constitution our leaders take an oath to defend have in front of us. As I’ve mentioned many times on this site, it’s gotten to the point where it’s all I can do to listen to the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and the others for even a minute or two. To me, THESE PEOPLE ARE THE ENEMY WITHIN. They are unbelievable liars – and, by that, I don’t mean it’s that hard to believe that they’re lying – what I mean is they are so arrogant about their lying that they have NO CONSCIENCE about it. They are PATHALOGICAL liars and, as I’ve said before, they seem to actually believe their own lies are true. Believe me, Beck and Limbaugh and Congress people like Jeff Sessions calling Obama and Sonia Sotomayor RACISTS is almost more than I can handle. These are people who definitely are having a hard time accepting that the WASPs are not AUTOMATICALLY going to be in charge anymore. It’s almost more frustrating that virtually no one in the “liberal” media calls them on the lies – I guess because of the “fair and balanced” syndrome.

It’s as if when they say something – you can pretty much believe exactly the opposite. This propoganda machine was initiated during the Reagan years in the eighties when Rush Limbaugh was thrust onto the scene. I’m absolutely certain that the Republicans had a plan back then to take over the airwaves and they’ve been blasting us with their “talking points” ever since. Even when Bill Clinton was President the Democrats were not sharp enough to figure out what was going on. It was under Clinton that the telecommunications companies were granted great leeway in consolidating to the point where now only a very few corporations control the vast majority of the airwaves. It was also during the Clinton years when much of the deregulation leading to the economic “meltdown” of 2008 was initiated. Clinton went along with the deregulation – thinking it would be good for business – but not, I’m sure, grasping the plans of the corporate heads who were behind the “push” for this and not fully understanding their insatiable greed – which we are still witnessing today while still essentially in the middle of a huge economic crisis (for example today, the announcement of BILLIONS in bonuses to the Wall Street bankers who are still in business due to the taxpayer bailout – UNBELIEVABEL!). While all this was taking place the Republicans were virtually controlling the entire radio airwaves with their “right wing talkers,” and – to anyone paying attention – there wasn’t much “blowback” to the endless supply of “expert pundits” who repeated the same lie OVER AND OVER AND OVER again – until they believed the lies – and, of course, many of the unsuspecting public just assumed that if they were on the airwaves and they had the moniker “news reporter” by their name – THEY MUST BE TELLING THE TRUTH.

Over time, people like Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly developed large listening audiences – there was absolutely NO COMPETITION until Air America emerged sometime after the turn of the Century (I discovered them sometime around the election of 2004 – which I believe was still in their “infancy”) and the so-called “progressive” talk continues to have less than 10 percent of the airwaves and, in many cases, is broadcast on the weakest signals (Portland Oregon, the market close to me, is an exception). I believe there are still many cities in the US which have no “progressive voice” on the radio airwaves – people can only get it either on their computers or through satellite radio – which would eliminate people like me from their audience. And, “progressives” have had to identify themselves with that word because the “conservative” talkers turned the word “liberal” into a “dirty word” through their classic propoganda strategies. What’s worse for me (I call myself part of the Christian “left”) is that many Christian leaders – like Jim Dobson of “Focus on the Family” who I once admired – got sucked into the “politics” and participated with the Republican “talking heads” into trying to marginalize anyone who could be called a “liberal.”

The gravity of the lies has reached the point where, as stated above, I believe the “real war” we’re involved in is an internal one for the very fabric of our nation. I didn’t understand its origins until President Obama got elected. The corporatacracy that has emerged since the Reagan years is appearing more and more to me as a White Male supremacy movement – underneath the overt corporate GREED aspect of it that is fairly obvious to anyone who is paying attention to what’s REALLY going on. How else can you explain these people who have such a clear history of racism in their own lives (ie, Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, Sessions, and I could go on) choosing – as one of their main attacks on President Obama – RACISM! This is unbelievable to me! THEY ARE ASSUMING EITHER THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE STUPID, OR THAT THE MAJORITY ARE RACIST AS WELL. Call me optomistic, but I believe these thugs are inciting a base of about 20 to 30% of the population – AT MOST. Call me naive, but I believe this strategy will BACKFIRE on them just like everything else they’re trying to do will backfire on them. America is a true MELTING POT and I believe the time is near when peole like Beck and Limbaugh (and the others) will be identified for what they are. I continue to struggle, as a Christian, with the reality that it is the “Christian Right” which is the base for these people. I honestly don’t know how anyone could reconcile belief in Jesus Christ with a racist heart. It is really offensive to me when these people imply that what they’re doing is what Jesus would do!

Here’s some stuff I’ve heard in the last couple of days that should get anyone’s attention who is interested and who is wanting this country to get “healthy” again (and, as I write the word “again” it causes me to pause – thinking about “when was it healthy?”). In the past three months, the “health care industry” has spent $133 MILLION to prevent health care reform. I shouldn’t have to explain this – THEY DON’T WANT REFORM, THEY WANT AS MUCH MONEY AS THEY CAN GET THEIR GREEDY FINGERS ON! This nation is in desperate straights to “fix” the health care system and get the “profit motive” out of it – our nation’s economy and the health of the people are at risk here – but these corporations care ONLY ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINES! I listened to a right wing “talker” from Portland today (his namd is Lars Larson – he’s a classic propogandist) claiming that the “Public Option” will result in the denial of care for the elderly – let them die so that “the government run system” wouldn’t be spending money on them. AS ABSURD AS THAT SOUNDS (and it is, because I looked up the bill and as with every other issue – LARSON WAS LYING) I’ve also heard the same claim from several others including Republican members of Congress – the only excuse any of these people could use to defend their lying is that they haven’t read the bill – what kind of excuse would that be for a member of Congress? They are also claiming that the “public option” will have the government paying for abortions. I even saw an add that was put out by the Republican party – MAKING BOTH OF THOSE CLAIMS! Additionally, today, I saw Republican adds blaming Obama for “bailing out” the banks and the auto industry – in both instances – of course, the “bailouts” were initiated by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen. Obama’s oversight of the stimulus money is what created stability (Obama and Geithner actually put “strings” on the money they doled out), but you’ll never hear that from these lying Republicans (I guess they assume, and maybe accurately – unfortunately – that the American public has a very short attention span – and they can’t remember who caused this mess in the first place).

Bush/Cheney et al spent eight years scaring Congress into one infringement on our liberty or our best interests after another. The Patriot bill, the FISA legislation, the Military Commissions act (or something close to that name – remember, when they eliminated habeous corpus from the “rights” of “enemy combatants” – which, by their definition, could have been you or me), and all the “Orange” alerts – warning us about imminent terrorist attacks right before elections or important votes in Congress. I still remember the words of Franklin D Roosevelt – “YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR, BUT FEAR ITSELF.” Well, these Republicans have become experts at playing the “fear card.” AND, I FOR ONE AM SICK OF IT! Bush/Cheney took us to the abiss of economic disaster, they stretched our military to the maximum, they ruined our standing in the world, they branded us a nation that tortures, and they lied us into an endless war – all of this while they and their cohorts were STEALING OUR TREASURY BLIND (I’ll always believe, unless someone can prove it otherwise, that Bush/Cheney wanted Iraq’s oil – that’s what our troops suffered for and why they destablized the Middle East – THEY WANTED THE OIL). But, the lying from Republicans didn’t stop for a second once President Obama took office – and these people (the K street lobbyists who are Republicans) have so much money that they continue to unabashedly BUY OUR REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS – I guess, because THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT! Which one of the right wing talkers is going to expose this? It shouldn’t be a surprise that the answer to that question is none because – well, guess who else is being “bought off?” (three guesses and the first two don’t count) This is all so disgusting and unbelievable – I mean, I can hardly believe the words flowing from my own computer.

The people who need to hear from “we the people” are President Obama and the Democratic members of Congress. I’m planning to contact my Senator (Maria Cantwell) again – and reiterate that, not only will I never vote for her again if she continues to oppose the so-called “public option” in the health care debate, but I will actively work to get her defeated the next time she’s up for election. I have no idea what effect that will have, but if enough people contact her in an attempt to overwhelmingly “override” the ramification of the money she must be taking from the insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital industries – I believe the main culprit would be the insurance industry, because they’re scared to death of the “public option” – maybe she wouldn’t vote with the Republicans and the “Blue Dog” Democrats on this one. President Obama needs to hear from people to get him to understand he’s not the “mediator” as he was in the “beer summit” – HE’S THE LEADER! He needs to quit being nice about this and go on the attack. He needs to confront the Democrats who are “balking” at supporting the “will of the people” and make it clear that he won’t accept some watered down legislation designed to get a few Republican votes. HE SHOULDN’T NEED ANY REPUBLICAN VOTES! Have the courage to pass what is “right” and let the consequences come from the success or failure of THE PLAN THAT REPRESENTS THE BEST PLAN FOR THE PEOPLE! THE REPUBLICANS DON’T WANT BIPARTISANSHIP – THEY WANT TO UNDERMINE OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY – THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO THEM THAN WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS NATION! IT’S TIME TO CALL IT WHAT IT IS. It was President Kennedy who warned us about the “enemy within.” That is, if the United States would ever be defeated it would come from an “enemy within” – meaning our own people. Well, the “enemy within” in America right now is the Republican party and the multi-national corporations they represent. I look forward to the day when someone emerges from the Republican party with the courage to tell the truth about what they’ve been doing and who truly believes in the Conservative principles outlined by Barry Goldwater in “Conscience of a Conservative.” The actions of the present day Republicans would have Goldwater “turning over in his grave!”