Political Issue Hypocrisy - Abortion

In my 20-odd years of following politics, I am continually irked at the framing of complex social issues into a 2 perspective diatribe from opposing political camps and their dogmatic agendas. Instead of the media freak show of interrupting, yelling, and the childish rantings of otherwise mature persons, where is the sane discussion including the views of our best minds in academia: historians, philosophers, sociologists, economists and scientists? And should religion be left out of the discussion? Isn't religion a personal choice which is supposed to be precluded from our political decisions?

Perhaps it is our cultural lack of attention span, but for once I'd like each issue to be discussed from multiple viewpoints by intelligent and erudite proponents, where the common ground is sought, with logic, reason, and our experience learned from history used to dissect each issue into its relevant parts. But no, we let the issues be manipulated by powerful media execs with financial ties to special interest groups like the Oil industry and other so-called consultant/ lobbyists who are pimping their agenda to give them the most revenue and thus, control of the dialogue. But I'd like to learn about each issue more clearly. Let me exemplify:

Issue 1: Abortion
Most folks agree that abortion is a form of killing, and the majority of us oppose abortion on principle (including true spiritual people who don't necessarily need the 10 Commandments to tell them "Thall Shall Not Kill." When a Christian opposes abortion, how can they then support war or capital punishment? After all, killing is killing, whether it's murder, suicide, manslaughter, or casualties. This is a pseudo-schizophrenic view that is clearly hypocritical. So the arguments for specific forms or conditions of killing are introduced in our language and the emotional buttons these words push.

Instead of debating when a fetus becomes life, let us recognize the ideal of non-violence to all life, from rats to cats, cattle and bats, to birds, deer, bears and us regular law-abiding folks. What about the wheat, carrots, and corn? Either all life is sacred, or it's not, but drawing a line somewhere is subjective, and few people have ‘objective subjectivity’ that is going to be fair to everyone. By being subjective, these choices are open to interpretation. Perhaps we should exclude the anti-killing law from serial killers, lawyers and politicians, but then start to qualify specific life and the value of it. There is the argument that we might abort the next Einstein, but history shows us that’s not the case. While the Wright Brothers get credit for the airplane, there was also Santos Dumon of Brazil who invented one at the same time. Then, there was Marconi and Tesla who co-invented the wireless radio, and Salk and Sabin created the Polio vaccine, so it is likely that these breakthroughs, “if not Einstein, then Goldberg” (or whomever). Ultimately, there may be no absolute truth about killing. Even in the Bible, it should be updated to say "Thou shall not kill, unless someone is trying to kill you first, in which case, you may defend yourself by killing your assailant". But let's get real.

In the world, human life is mostly treated cheaply - from the exploitation of the poor and uneducated, to soldiers forced to fight for “their country” because they accept the rationalization (or doublespeak) by their national political leadership’s agenda (Imperialism? Retribution? WMD’s? Al Qaeda? Which one is it again?) Then there is the perversion of religion by extremists who justify their actions using God as their excuse. The God I believe in may not look or sound like your God, whether it's Jesus, Allah, Elvis, Santa Claus, or Kal-El (Superman), but I can tell you, God has created life as a death sentence, and it's up to us to chose NOT to Kill one another and let God (or DNA) set your expiration date. If you believe the Bible, I thought Jesus died for our sins so we could live like him, forgiving everyone for their sins, whether it was Mary’s harlotry or Judas betrayal. All this culturo-religious violence should be over by now. Look what Gandhi accomplished through non-violence - the Brits left India (*hint* Iraqi’s - try this tactic)! Humans kill one another for power, lust, hate, greed, mental illness or psycho-spiritual dysfunction, so if you agree that abortion as killing, then accept humanity is damn good at it. And we allow murder in certain cases of self-defense, crimes of passion (which are treated as temporary insanity), or, if you are black, famous and wealthy and play the race card (remember OJ? ..Murderer..), murder is tolerated.

For an unborn fetus, several factors contribute to deciding whether to keep the child or not. It seems if a child is to be born into a poor crack house, his chances for survival are pretty low anyway, so perhaps by terminating a pregnancy, we are in fact saving the life of the mother. In cases of rape, I imagine the mother not wanting the child of some dubious and unwanted sperm donor. It boils down to the lesser of two evils. If our social system would pay for the pregnancy through term to adoption, then perhaps some of these cases could be avoided, but in our current social crisis, there may always be SOME reason in which abortion is justified, just as we justify occupying Iraq killing thousands of innocent persons in our vain attempt to stop ‘terror’.

In every situation where we make rules, there are ALWAYS exceptions which have to be handled in violation of the given rule, whatever it is. Complex issues are never black and white, and it's unfair to force our citizenry into this "code of divisiveness" that is so pervasive in our thinking today. God (or Moses) should have included that commandment "Thou Shalt be Fair." I will be making other examples of complex issues whcih should be considered from multiple perspectives, with the underlying theme of maintaining our American Freedom, which was earned through colonial insurgents killing many British and French people, not to mention the patricide against the indigenous Americans.

If we're not careful, we'll forsake our reason for our emotion, and our science for religion - in other words, we'll lose our objectivity to subjectivity, and when that happens, then there will be even more problems that we have today. We need look no further than Iraq to see what happens when humans give away their mind to religious nonsense instead of dedicating their life to God's common ground: Don't kill innocent life, unless their are extenuating circumstances, and those circumstances are.....

Live Earth Review: a dead event?

7/07/07 was supposed to be a magical day where the corrupt American leadership - from its politicians to corporate thieves and the oil oligarchy would be dealt an ideological blow by the liberal intelligentsia through Al Gore’s Live Earth concert to raise awareness of the global warming issue. Unfortunately, NBC's coverage of Live Earth was so completely dreadful, it became un-watchable after the first 5 minutes. Was it because of their producer’s hatchet job edits, or were the acts just uninspired and irrelevant? From Ann Curry’s antiseptic interview of Sting and Trudy, to Carson Daly’s complete lack of talent as an MC, not only did the musical acts fail to deliver any real passion, even Gore’s 3 minute speech on his “7 step pledge” was delivered in his usual wooden style in such a hurried fashion I can’t recall what the pledge was.

If global warming is such a big deal, why didn’t Al get someone with vision and clout to produce the event? Whoever he hired was talentless on just about every level, from production design to talent acquisition. I was hoping for at least the aspiration of a Woodstock or the impact of Live Aid, and all we got was watered down MTV. Only Metallica had a sense of edge to it with a solid performance. Watching Madonna sing off-key, and The Police (with Kanye’ West) butchering “Message in a Bottle” was about exciting as having a good bowel movement. It’s a sad day when pop media figures like Alicia Keys or Cameron Diaz are used to speak on complex issues like global climate change. Couldn’t they find one decent climatologist with charisma to talk about the state of the science? Is this the best we can do?

Starting with the stage design - where those supposed to be used tires in the background? Where was the video backdrop presenting educational messaging to educate the crowd on global warming and the actions that can be taken to make a difference? According to NBC’s coverage, it all begins with changing a light bulb. Where was Robert Redford and the Apollo Alliance? And NBC couldn’t donate 3 hours of tv time? They had to sell advertising time, where we found out that American cars can get 30 miles per gallon (Buckminster Fuller had a patent in 1929 for a car with those specs). At least Live Aid was an all day event, which was only 2 international stadiums, and it had real passion.

The execution of this event was amateur, the musical acts irrelevant, the message obfuscated, and NBC’s coverage disgraceful. I understand it’s a step, but considering all the energy and promotion spent on it, if this is the best we can do, we might as well say to hell with it. It shows that Al has less leadership capability than Bob Geldoff (the Live Aid executive producer for all you youngsters), so I pray he chooses to stay out of politics. Perhaps Gore’s heart is in the right place (although one can’t deny the hypocrisy of the wealthy and their extended carbon footprint). Perhaps his efforts will have a positive impact on people’s attitudes so that they make a serious effort to change their lifestyle and their economic choices, which is the only power the American citizenry has.

Popular music has lost all sense of message, musicianship, and balls. While Joss Stone was the only other decent musical act, where was Prince, dressed to kill, playing a Hendrix-like ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ guitar on fire, with photos of George and Dick with their evil smirk, then dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq with oil fields ablaze in the background and Halliburton’s annual report in black and white for all to see? We need to look in the mirror to see the real reason our country is hated. As the greatest contributor to this threat to our planet, we need to start taking responsibility for our actions and treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve. For me, Live Earth was a limp effort bordering on the absurd. It was so completely uninteresting, I didn’t even feel disappointed - I felt nothing at all.

Penalties for Politicians?

The Chinese have the right idea on how to fight political corruption:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-Tainted-Products.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Even if we convict the white collar bad guys (Scooter), they get away with it. And our gutless Congress, where are they? I'd make a good bet that Cheney is guilty of crimes worse than bribery. Even if the Congress tries to get that sonofabitch, he'll get pardoned.

We've let America become the land of the entitled ultra-rich, where they can do any damn thing they want with impunity (murder in OJ's case). As history proves, the people will eventually become enraged over this misbehavior and eventually revolt, overthrowing our system, which has become increasingly corrupted by greed and megalomania. We’ll end up losing the idealistic values so beautifully expressed in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence (documents we should all re-read).

Maybe the terrorists are simply those socially dis-enfranchised, economically challenged and frustrated souls with enough insight to understand the hypocrisy of America’s policy actions, where our lust for money has taken precedence over a belief in God (or simply Good).

As we debate God's existence, we rationalize our egoism and justify elitist attitudes of superiority over our fellow humans. If God doesn’t exist, then the satisfaction of our individual desires and the disintegration of our consciences becomes an inevitable outcome, which is being reflected by the behavior of the popular culture. If it does exist, then one could make an argument that the Jihad is the correct course of action, just as the Christians believed in their Crusades. Personally, I see a distinction between God and religion, and it is humanity’s perversion of religion that is often used as justification for war.

Instead, let us have a belief in Good, and empower our government to act in the behalf of that ideal. If we don’t, what principles do we have worth upholding? Without moral values worth upholding, the cycles of history indicate that ‘Rome’ will burn again.

Ted Nugent - Stoned Rock Star

Ted Nugent’s redress of the ‘Summer of Love’ in the July 3 edition of the Wall Street Journal is not without its merits, but Mr. Nugent’s perspective could use a bit of debate. Indeed, a psychologist could have hours of fun exploring Ted’s need to prance around a stage in front of thousands of stoned fans who ‘worship’ at his altar of half-naked, self-flagellating pretentiousness and egocentric guitar hero archetype, which has long since faded from the limelight, but let’s forego any further criticism of the musical innovation of ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ and explore his hippie drug culture condemnations.

First of all, for one who has never taken a drug, Ted Nugent has formed an opinion based on a bias which is missing some key data. Besides the fact that there are many more functional and successful recreational drug users than there are excessive cases such as Hendrix (for example Paul McCartney, Richard Branson, Edgar Allen Poe, Miles Davis, and on), Nugent doesn’t understand the difference between ingestion of substances and the psychological problem of addiction. Addiction is what causes drug users to OD (or megalomaniacs to invade other countries or money addicts to commit crimes in the name of greed).

Ted’s argument errs in that typically polarizing narrow-mindedness that has become endemic to our American culture. If he would take the time to read Timothy Leary’s autobiography “Flashback,” he might learn that Dr. Leary had success in rehabilitating criminals, and it was for this success that the FBI destroyed Leary’s career and reputation (because he threatened their power base - imagine a world where people didn’t commit crimes - the FBI would have its funding cut substantially). But Nugent prefers to shoot defenseless animals who, in his view, are there for his consumption. I’m sure that dead doe is ecstatic to lose its life so Ted can go “uhhhnghh!” like our primitive ancestors who had to hunt to survive. If Nugent had any compassion, he might become vegetarian, or at least accept that those who choose to ingest certain God-given plants - for whatever reason - may have reasons other than to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” Although if the current generation is any indication, we’re “turning on more, tuning in more (garbage) and dropping further out” by hiding behind our iPod ear buds, cell phone calls and internet avatars.

This is the real American challenge for the current and future generations. We have to give up this extremist black and white thinking that ignores our common ground - that the Earth is a system of life, and all of its species has a need (and should have basic “life rights”). We can debate the effects of drug use on the human race (and if history is the judge, taking hallucinogens was originally about invoking a spiritual experience, and has not always led to a useless life); we can debate the behavior of twenty-year olds and a generation which had been sexually and morally repressed for decades, with the guilt of the atomic bomb and McCarthyism trying to understand the hypocrisy of the megalomaniacs in Washington that sought global power through American Imperialism under the guise of ‘fighting communism.” But forming opinions without the experience, data or knowledge of an issue and the historical, cultural and political overtones that influence the issue is the kind of dimwitted attitude expressed with such flair by the talking heads in the media. Perhaps the next generation of Hippies will learn from the mistakes their parents made and be sober most of the time, and understand that an occasional dalliance into a recreational drug is probably less harmful that the national alcohol abuse problem. May they attain the wisdom that Ted Nugent’s peers neglected, and use it to create a world that is safe, just, and fair - even to the animals, before it’s too late.

American Bi-Polar Disorder

Watching the media these days is like watching a therapy session of dysfunctional bi-polar schizophrenics. They way political analysts try to simplify complex issues into Democratic or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, where complex issues are talked about in such tiny sound bytes of a minute or two, makes it difficult for a logical opinion to be formed. It seems to prove the point that the people running the media are less intelligent than their audience. Then, there is the government's press department, which uses 'divide and conquer' tactics, applying Orwellian "dis-information and double speak." By keeping the intellectual and economic classes separated ("you gotta' keep 'em separated"), the voting public seems to have a great difficulty figuring out the truth. But the truth is there, once you get past the black and white.

Most people I know have beliefs or positions somewhere in the grey. I'm sure many of your friends are in the grey as well, yet the media continues to show a "bi-polarized view" of our nation. Who do you know that can be so easily compartmentalized into black or white (and I'm not talking about race - there's only one of those - it's called "the Human Race")? The tv talking heads are produced in such a way as to play on your' emotions by circumventing your intellect. It's worked for years, but thanks to this medium - the internet - alternative points of view are getting expressed and freedom of speech is alive and well, at least for the time being.

As popular blog and innovative website audiences grow, accurate and easily understandable information should rise to the top. Eventually, the powers that be will get wise and try to either buy their way back into control (the media), or regulate it through law (the government). It's up to us to stop them. So don't give in to the black and white - keep the grey going. It's where most of us live, it's how most of us think. We can stay on the fence. Divide and conquer? How about "join and love?" Bi-polar disorder is a real disease, and it's affecting our nation. Let's try to find the cure together.

WP