A Foggy Future

My waking hours are blistered with terror this and war that. Fear. We live in a world where fear dictates our every move and our every decision. It wasn't always this way. In 1941 FDR reminded the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. And sixty years later we forgot.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." He knew too what FDR spoke of, that we cannot live our lives in fear and we cannot do things in haste because of fear.

The Bush presidency is littered with mistakes of this sort. And it is the future that will pay. I will not speak of the numerous and wide ranging violations of essential liberty that we've made. I will not speak of the fear that has gripped this nation, particularly in its heartland, where attacks are in the very least more unlikely than in urban America. These atrocities have been listed elsewhere, and as I'm sure there are others we've yet to uncover, I'll save my ramblings for a little while longer on those topics.

However, I do wish to speak of one thing. Independent thought. No matter what rights are stripped of us with the aim to defeat terrorism abroad, however that works, we still have our Independence. We are able to reason. We must reason. We must ask questions. It is our duty to question authority.

I will repeat that: IT IS OUR DUTY TO QUESTION AUTHORITY.

Authority is meant to be given to those who have our best interests at heart. It is to be used as a means of protection. This is government. However, from time to time we must understand that the government becomes cancerous to the people it represents and there must be turn over. However, sometimes such fatal flaws appear in the answers we discern that drastic action must be taken to alleviate this country of undue and possibly fatal harm.

There is a means to do this that is both legal, and indeed the patriotic duty of ALL Americans. Impeachment. There are those out there who say that it isn't right to use such drastic powers. Indeed there are others who claim that what has been done to this country over the past six and a half years has been for its benefit. As for the former, I can only ask if you are willing to endure in the next year and a half, what has transpired in the past six? Further, to those who believe that the last six and a half years have benefited us, I ask you to move to Canada. You are a cancer to freedom. You are a cancer to democracy. You are a cancer on the soul of America.

It's time that the grown-ups step in and take the reigns. It's time to ground the disobedient child not to leave him standing nude with batteries attached to his extremities and a bag over his head. It's time for adult solutions. Explanations and apologies. Humility and shame. Because we should all bear that shame. Each and every one of us who believed in this cause should feel shame for the actions that we've undertaken over the past six and a half years. And, the rest of us should feel shame for letting you do it. I believe in your own words, "pride goeth before a fall". And you've been far too prideful in what you call a just nation. We owe the world an explanation. We need to tell them why we did what we did. Why we really did it. Not some bullshit politicking, the real answer. And then we need to apologise. We need to beg forgiveness for ever soul we've killed, for ever family we've hurt. We need to apologise for breaking international law. And, somehow we have to find a way to make up for it.

This nation needs to grow up. It's been in the rebellious teenager stage for far too long. If we are going to last as a society, we must confront our own consciences and our national conscience. We have to learn to coexist. We have to learn to become a contributing member of the world society. We must do it soon. Every day that passes the cancer grows and soon this nation, which was founded on such great ideas, will succumb to an early, yet heartily asked for death. We have very little time to save ourselves. And we have even less to save what our country once was for it's being rewritten as we speak.

The key is knowledge. But the tools are everything at our disposal. And we all need to contribute. No longer can we allow our authority figures to take advantage of us. We must be knowledgeable; we must be alert; we must be persistent.

Do not fear what is to come. Fear only that we won't have the courage to correct ourselves. Continuing down the path we are on leads only to doom. We must be courageous.

All Things Considered... Disappointed

While there once was a man from Nantucket, this is not his story, nor is it the story of a boy from Boston, a lad from Laurence, or a fellow from Framingham, but a story of a kid with yellow skin, a red cap, a give-em-hell attitude, and a fourth grade education. And hell yeah, he coulda made sergeant! But he didn't. No sir he did not. You would figure that something so big, so absolutely needed in this fucked up world of pale v. brown skin, may not live up to the high standards of one B. R. Superfan but of, in the very least, the promotion of the product itself. For shame. For shame, for you have failed us.

Twenty years ago you learned how to make us laugh and how to make us feel and we too learned these things from you. But time as it is today, status quo has gone stale. The same ol' same old is old and not worth paying for to see. It was eighteen years in the making and quite frankly it may take eighteen more before I'll pay to see another. Sure I'll still watch for free, but I'm Superfan, and there aren't enough of us to keep the this Bluberpust on his toes.

Yeah, we laughed and giggled and smirked a little. But it was just another episode in the end, around the length of three. I don't know what to say, I'm horribly conflicted about this whole idea, that a cartoon family can laugh and cry and feel. And though it's worked for so many years, I've seen it and what I saw tonight, though new, I have seen before. I needed something more to make my trip worthwhile, a little suspense or drama, or a point to come down and say, we can be real too, we're not just characters on a page, lines spit profusely, vaudeville comedy of the nth bombasity. Because that's what made you real to us. That's what made eighteen years. You were real. And tonight, your movie was fake.

A Little Steam

Where do we get the delusion that we're so great here in America? Honestly, have you seen some of these fucked up people? It never ceases to amaze me that we can have a country, whose model of government was tantamount to epic at its outset, and fail so completely to create a nation of enlightened citizens to populate it. It's them too, who say our Arab friends are so uncivilized. It's them that believe that it is their job to "democratize" the Arab world.

Only in America do we put warning caps (the little orange thingy) on the ends of fake guns, but leave real ones alone. Oh please, forbid us from taking their manly obsession away. Let us not belittle their phallic stupidity. Fake guns need to stand out, while the real ones, you know the ones that actually kill, we can't make them stand out, the pre-injured quail might see Dick Cheney coming. Screw the old man, he wouldn't have seen the orange tip anyways.

There's only one reason we have guns, fundamentally. They fear the government and must protect themselves if the government invades their precious dairy farms and car parks. This is the kind of archaic people we're talking about.

Then there's those people who believe that it's the government's job to proliferate their views. This is particularly important to Christian conservatives. It's God this and God that to them. Unfortunately, "God" has no place in government. It's actually written in the Constitution. It is. Freedom of religion, from the First Amendment, also means freedom FROM religion. They just don't want you to realize this. Since Reagan and his crypto-fascist regime this understanding has all but disappeared.

Then there are those who think that because their religion says that it's necessary to discriminate against a group of people then the Constitution supports this. Umm, wrong. You have to remember that the freedoms promised in the Constitution do NOT apply to you, but to the ENTIRE country as a WHOLE. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created EQUAL." Not just one man or one group's beliefs. ALL. African Americans were property and then they were "seperate but equal". Women were the same. Gays are the latter. It's always the same excuses with these people and they're all intrinsically wrong. EVERYONE is entitled to their way of life ("persuit of happiness") regardless of which religion they choose to practice, or what gender they are, or what orientation they are. ALL Americans are created EQUAL from the beginning. If you are a citizen then you MUST be afforded the rights of Americans. There is NO in between. You cannot have some of the rights any more than some of the people can have all the rights.

Stem cell research and abortion are of the same problem. They think that they have the right to tell others how to live. Allow me to quote: "All men are created equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights: LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PERSUIT OF HAPPINESS." You fucking idiots. Just because you have a problem with it does not mean the government gives you the power to decide for them if they are going to live or how they're going to do it.

These are just a small smattering of the people in this nation that, given the choice, I'd use as proof against the Theory of Evolution (wouldn't they love that too). So hey, you guys, if you want to believe what you believe, go ahead and do it. But the moment you try to get the rest of us to go along, go fuck yourself. Oh wait, masturbation is a sin you naughty little pedophiles, go pretend to fuck yourself and then go rape little children.

It's what you do best you self-important mideaval fucktard.

#1: Recruited

The sun doesn't shine as brightly in North Upperton as it did before the bombs fell, before the air turned acrid and thick with the soot of fear and the indignation of governance. It wasn't the fault the Cook family that the wars of their husbands' wrought backlash on their sons. Nor was it Mr. Jones' fault that half of the town's children were born that way, deformed, malformed by the poor drinking water. Indeed, it was only one person's fault in North Upperton.

Mr. and Mrs. Paulson's son is shunned now. He took part in the war. He volunteered; he "joined up". There's only so many reasons to say no when they wave the flag in your face; only a short few excuses as to why you hate your country. Sooner or later, you're going to fold. Sooner or later, you're going to start believing things you'd never have believed before. More soon than not, taking the life of another will seem glamorous, necessary even. And by then, you've mortgaged your soul for the three up and three down.

Rich men and men in power seem more than eager to give you something and the more eager they become, the more they seem to have to give, an endlessly increasing supply of what you want. Too bad you don't realize that it was taken from those who came before you and from you soon enough too. The money was what finally got Tommy Paulson's J.H. He wanted to go to college, make something of himself. He wanted to make everyone proud back home.

Boot camp was hell, but what came next was worse. The bombs fell because of Tommy. He did his job just as the three up and three down told him. He was afraid, but he needed to protect his country and his town. He fought long and hard. He even received a shrapnel wound, which it seemed was all the rage of old war stories. It was a badge of honor, a sacrifice to protect his family. No one ever told him that it was friendly fire. There was no need. He was content with his spoon fed pipe dream.

Tommy came home with a limp and his pride. He saved North Upperton. But all was not as it should have been in his small town. No, something was very wrong. Mr. Jones' farm had turned to dust and Mrs. Cook and her daughter had moved away. The Peterson's hadn't their cattle herd anymore. And, they too had fled, unable to turn a profit. Even old Mathias Davidly was gone, succumbed to a poor man's grave.

Tommy Paulson was shunned now; he did this. His war took the crops and the cattle. It took jobs from hard workers like the Cooks. It bankrupted the economy and caused the banks to fail. It was a war fought to keep freedoms and provide security to a nation. It was to provide money for college for Tommy. And it was supposed to remain "over there". But all is connected. What effects one area affects the stability of the others.

Tommy killed himself two years later. Those who called him a patriot were silent that night. They later reminded his mother that he was a valiant war hero and a man of courage, and then they moved on to the next small town to find another Tommy without a second's hesitation.

GREED AND IGNORANCE BEGET WAR!