The Problem with Some Christians

This whole end of the world-Armageddon-Anti-Christ mass delusion some Christians have perpetrated on us is actually more damaging to America and the world than it is humorous or  good subject for ridicule. It creates in conservative Christians the need to be righteous and pious and to them, I believe, it means controlling us by stepping on the rest of us.

Believing in a Messiah is akin to a drug addict believing that someone is going to come and cure him of his drug addiction and he won’t have to do anything. That’s not how recovery works and that’s not how the world will work.

My theory is supported by something in the Bible, Psalm 95. According to Wikipedia: “A common modern rabbinic interpretation is that there is a potential messiah in every generation. The Talmud, which often uses stories to make a moral point (aggadah), tells of a highly respected rabbi who found the Messiah at the gates of Rome and asked him, "When will you finally come?" He was quite surprised when he was told, "Today." Overjoyed and full of anticipation, the man waited all day. The next day he returned, disappointed and puzzled, and asked, "You said messiah would come 'today' but he didn't come! What happened?" The Messiah replied, "Scripture says, 'Today, 'if you will but hearken to His voice.'”

I would argue that there is not only a potential Messiah in every generation but there is a potential Messiah in every one of us.

This messiah prophecy stuff was developed at a time of relative primitivism. The mindset that developed the belief that someone would come to their rescue like Superman was the same mindset that also believed in hell.

The belief that a Messiah will come down and everyone will be saved creates the psychology that those believers do not have to be responsible for themselves, or others, or to the world.

There will never be a Judgment Day and there will never be an End Times just like there was never a Biblical Adam and Eve. Those are myths designed to convey the author‘s political point. They were not real, living, historical human beings. Doesn’t one think with the fervency of Christian validation by Believers through the sciences, that someone would find the Garden of Eden?

Maybe the messiah concept is based on Ezekiel’s wheel and the space aliens are the messiah Judaism believes in; they are little grey men.

What Jesus said was very instructive and beneficial to creating a just world for all. But Christians are more concerned with oppressing others than loving others.

Christians don’t have the right or the moral authority to force anything on anyone until they first abide by Jesus’ words. One commandment that is fitting today is “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Many Christians don’t seem to be capable of that.

Greed is one of the biggest problems in the world today. It’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Don’t you think Christians would charge around the world battling greed just as Jesus charged into the Temple to battle the money changers who turned his “Father’s house into a den of thieves”?

Gandhi said: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”

”Love your neighbor as yourself” and “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you” are so very relevant today—and much needed. But for much of the rest of it, I believe it is important for humanity to get past these ancient beliefs because they do not serve us properly anymore. It’s like continuing to wear the same shoes as an adult that you wore as an adolescent. They hurt your feet and you cannot walk properly anymore

For those of us with a belief in “god” (I hate the word but it is easily understood by many) we must strip religions down to only what works and what creates a better world and discard the rest. We must only be interested in our spiritual reality. Our spiritual selves are bound by spiritual laws just as our physical selves are bound by physical laws. What really are those spiritual laws? And how do I, by using them, make myself and my world better for myself and others?

So, what next? Well, on to the next end of the world—October 21, 2011. And when that doesn’t happen, on to December 21, 2012.

And don’t blame that on the Maya for that. That’s a modern western interpretation of what is simply the end of a “baktun—a cycle in the calendar— in the Mayan calendar and is not meant to suggest the end of the world as the idiots would have us believe.

As a species we have always been very insecure about our origin, our destiny and our purpose. So we’ve created myths with our ability to reason in our limited ancient minds to answer questions we could not answer with science so long ago. We no longer have those ancient limitations and we must move forward. With globalism and the worldwide web, now is the time that we as humanity and we as a species take a quantum leap forward in understanding our spiritual reality and our true humanity.

Oil Things Must Pass

I went to the beach last weekend and stepped in a pile of asphalt that had been floating in Santa Monica Bay and had washed ashore after being dumped by a tanker at the oil refineries south of LAX. It made me mad. Oil companies get away with everything, including soiling my shoes.

Last week, the CEOs of the big five oil companies testified before Congress about why they needed their welfare checks while making record money from gambling. Because of Wall Street oil speculators, the price of a barrel of oil is driven up (in some estimates) $44 a barrel to about $100 a barrel.

Speculation has nothing to do with the hands on exploration and production of oil, nor does it have to do with supply and demand. Speculation should be made illegal or heavily regulated. Obama needs to rein in these speculators. He promised in June 2008 that he would do so. Do you think he will now?

Right. On to the next paragraph.

I believe big oil’s Gang of Five should pay for all wars fought in the Middle East. It is as obvious that Libya is not about human rights as it was that Iraq was not about WMD.

I also believe that in wars fought for oil by governments on behalf of oil corporations, the corporations should not only pay for the wars like a business expense, but they and their proxy governments should be liable for damages just like in business, but not like in oil spills. These are blood spills, so they would not be able to be passed on to the taxpayer, consumer and next generation American like BP is doing in the Gulf. Talk about your entitlements!

This means that killing innocent children in their profiteering wars would cost them monetarily in amounts much greater than the 1-2% taxpayer welfare they so hate to lose. One oil executive threatened to move their operation out of the US. I say “Go ahead! Leave! And don’t let your rig hit you in the ass on the way out!”

Necessity is the mother of invention and if America needs to invent a better way to do everything without oil and gas we will.

In fact, is it not a good idea to start a boycott of one of the big five to send a message and scare the hell out of the other four? Of course it is.

And hey, what about the sequel to Who Killed the Electric Car called Revenge of the Electric Car? Try to see it if you can. We need to change the world we live in. Maybe this is a way.

The Mandarin Candidate

Given that all the Republican candidates are head cases, the only viable Republican seems to be John Huntsman. However….

Yeah, if my beliefs are correct it could be interesting.

Huntsman knows he won’t get the nomination in 2012. But he’s putting his name out there because he knows the Republican-Tea Party self-destruction and the deconstruction of America won’t be tolerated much past 2014 which, by then, the Republican-Tea Party cabal will have brought America to the brink of armed insurrection on a multiple statewide level. That’s right, unemployed gun carrying yahoos firing at the Florida statehouse and governor’s residence (among a few other red states) recalls with extreme prejudice.

If Obama is a shoo-in for re-election because of the Bin Laden killing and other things—and Huntsman knows it—he’s positioning himself to be the best-qualified Republican to run against Hillary in 2016—again, after the coming Republican collapse.

Huntsman went to Wall Street for fundraising, to DC for strategy, and to South Carolina for the Gong Show. Perhaps we can derive from his attempt at a candidacy that the political winds are blowing from a different direction.

Or, perhaps we can derive that Huntsman is just another egotistical politician with delusions of grandeur and the usual maniacal desire for power.

Or, Huntsman is a brainwashed tool of the Chinese—the Mandarin Candidate—come to cart off of America the last of what the Republicans and the corporations have already given them.

Or, perhaps the Koch Brothers are trying a different political strategy—that Huntsman will run as a charming and smart independent to draw votes away from Obama like Perot did in ’92 for Bush 1 and President Richard John Santorum will be sworn in on January 20, 2013.

Children and War

We are human beings with some control over our shared destiny. The world is getting smaller. We are all becoming closer. I have no misconceptions about being able to end war anytime soon. However, is it not possible for all of us to resolve that children should never ever die in a war?

According to an April 14, 2009 article in The Telegraph, of the people killed in US air strikes whose gender could be determined, 46 percent were women and 39 percent were children. The same article states that a sizable number of children killed in Iraq were killed as part of warfare between ethnic and religious rivals.

Regardless of whether its smart bombs or sectarian bullets, the death of children is wrong. It doesn’t matter if today’s religions consider it a sin or not. When I look around the world I don’t see that today’s major religions are making the world better—in fact, their effect is quite the opposite.

A 1996 report from UNICEF titled “Children in War” stated that “Recent developments in warfare have significantly heightened the dangers for children. During the last decade, it is estimated (and these figures, while specific, are necessarily orders of magnitude) that child victims have included:

2 million killed;

4-5 million disabled;

12 million left homeless;

more than 1 million orphaned or separated from their parents;

some 10 million psychologically traumatized.”

That was from 15 years ago.

And then there are the drug cartels. Last April 9 The Washington Post ran an article titled “Mexican drug cartels targeting and killing children”. Read it. The details are abhorrent.

For children who survive war, there’s The Children and War Foundation. You may be interested in finding out more about them and other similar organizations.

From Qaddafi’s grandchildren last weekend, to all those kids killed in Vietnam, to those Hitler destroyed in camps, to the American Indian children massacred by the US Calvary, to the children Herod killed, to all children killed since the beginning of time, killing children for any reason is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. There are some things that should be sacred globally. Loving and nurturing children should be high on that sacred list.

The point I’m trying to make is this: I believe we are supposed to evolve and progress into becoming a peaceful and passive species. If others also believe that, can we not choose to progress toward that eventuality? Is it not a mixture of belief and destiny that controls our fate anyway?

And can we not at least resolve to try to protect children as a step toward eradicating war forever and as a step toward that peaceful, passive destiny?

We may not be able to bring peace to the world, but can we not begin to bring limits to war? To scale it back? I may sound naïve. I may be naïve. But to change things for the better, we must start with what is considered impossible.

The global pro-peace, anti-war movement is within all of us. We just have to choose to follow it and build it. It may not be easy, and it may take a long time, but it can be done.

The first, arguably, attainable goal we must make toward realizing that goal is: no more children will be killed in wars for oil. Maybe we should begin counting the price of a barrel of oil not in dollars, but in the number of bodies of dead children.

And we can strengthen that decision by choosing to permanently move away from oil for all its uses and purposes.

Obama sin laden

Yes, this title, a silly play on words, is intentional.

On Saturday afternoon I was angry at the news that three of Qaddafi’s grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed in a missile attack which also reportedly killed Qaddafi’s son. Then came disagreement in the some parts of the blogos-fear (clever, aren’t I?) whether he was or was not the evil, older son. A cursory view just now of some liberal websites to verify, clarify and research for this writing has become frustrating because the news of Osama’s killing is everywhere in a multitude of aspects and angles serving its purpose as collective conscious and unconscious distraction.

The death of these kids was the result of a NATO strike. But don’t we own NATO? Should we, the superior “Christian valued nation”, firstly, not go to war, and secondly, not kill children? Now here’s the infuriating question: for oil???!!!

The possibility/probability (your choice) that these kids (and many others around the world in many different wars and military and “police” actions we’ve fought) died for oil is on par with being godless…unless our god is oil and/or geopolitical control.

There are human rights abuses in many places around the world and there have been human rights abuses in Libya for a long time. Suddenly the US is involved? Suddenly NATO is passing resolutions and sending missiles?

Oil.

And each and every child killed in a war for oil (or Halliburton or the US Chamber of Commerce or Walmart), the loss of their lives are, each and every one, an unconscionable sin that Obama is quickly becoming laden with.

For oil.

The old adage is fight fire with fire. But sometimes that strategy cannot and should not apply. How can you fight human rights abuses with human rights abuses? And if a NATO missile killing children doesn’t violate these kids’ human rights I don’t know what does.

Oil.

Have I said it enough?

Oil?

Barack Hussein Oilbama.

What a silly word play.

Paul Ryan's Sick Joke

 

“A Senior walks into a hospital looking for treatment and steps up to the nurse’s desk. The Nurse asks, ‘May I help you?’ The Senior says, ‘I can’t breathe, I’m coughing up blood and my Paul Ryan-Medicare substitute voucher’s out of money, can you help me?’ The Nurse says, ‘I have some good news and I have some bad news.’ The Senior says, ‘What’s the good news?’ The Nurse says, ‘The good news is I know what’s wrong. You have cancer.’ The Senior says, ‘That’s the good news?? What’s the bad news?’ The Nurse says, ‘The bad news is we could cure you but your voucher’s out of money.’
 
Because of all the hits yesterday's blog received, I decided to put the joke in its proper context.

Playing the Ol' Class Card

What’s the future of America, and the world for that matter, when it comes to the widening gulf between the rich and poor?

The recent and continuing attempts to throw off the yoke of dictators, whether Middle Eastern, or Wisconsin anti-union means the “man” ain’t gonna be too happy until they get everyone under submission again.

When Martin Luther King Jr. became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement the concept of “playing the race card” had not been invented because the Civil Rights Movement was creating a whole new deck for a whole new game. Since the 70s, to my memory, there were many times when blacks—and whites for that matter—were accused of “playing the race card”.

The lack of respect for the needs of poor and vulnerable is reaching a fevered pitch in this country. It seems that the time may not be far off when politicians and activists in talking about their concern for poor people and complaining about the lack of respect that Republicans, and some Democrats, have for them that they will be accused of playing the “class card”, or the “poor card”.

For two years, racist jokes about our first black president have been making the circuit on the internet and through emails. And with contempt for the poor and the vulnerable so obvious in the GOP’s push to privatize Medicare, it seems to me we are not far from seeing classist jokes from being discovered in Congressmen’s emails.

For example, jokes like, “A Senior walks into a hospital looking for treatment and steps up to the nurse’s desk. The Nurse asks, ‘May I help you?’ The Senior says, ‘I can’t breathe, I’m coughing up blood and my Paul Ryan-Medicare substitute voucher’s out of money, can you help me?’ The Nurse says, ‘I have some good news and I have some bad news.’ The Senior says, ‘What’s the good news?’ The Nurse says, ‘The good news is I know what’s wrong. You have cancer.’ The Senior says, ‘That’s the good news?? What’s the bad news?’ The Nurse says, ‘The bad news is we could cure you but your voucher’s out of money.’”

God Tells Me

God tells me that when He created the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, He originally thought to call it the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Kinda Bad but realized that “kinda bad” spelled backward was “dabadnik”, which in Lithuanian means “transmission repair”, and wasn’t as cool as the “evil"/“live” thing.

Lenny Bruce

For more than 30 years I’ve had some Lenny Bruce albums: “Thank You Masked Man”, “The Berkeley Concert”, “The Law, the Language and Lenny Bruce”. I think I also had “The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce”, but I believe that got stolen and sold by a heroin addict I used to live with in New York back in 1985.

Ah, those were great days.

Inspired by my friend Dennis Perrin’s stand-up comedy endeavors, and my desire to re-experience my nostalgia-colored “better times”, lately I’ve been buying late-50s early-60s comedy records. There is something about the times. Despite the racism, sexism and other isms back then, there was a sense of style and sophistication in the air. Nightclubs were not discos. Men wore suits and ties, women wore dresses. The ever-present swirl of cigarette smoke gave everything a mystique that Mad Men captures very well, but you had to be there to really understand. Going out then had a specialness to it that seems to be missing in today’s miasmic culture.

The comedians of the time were considered by Time Magazine in an article titled, “COMEDIANS: The Third Campaign”, to be intelligent, insightful and funny. That may seem shocking today, but that’s because it’s been a whole half century of comedy between now and then. And it was those comedians who first inspired and created a more cerebral approach to comedy that led to Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and  others.

I have three Mort Sahl albums with another on the way. And I’m seeing, thirty years after falling in love with Lenny Bruce, that I never gave Mort Sahl the credit or exploration he was due. A comparison of Lenny and Mort can be made which would easily complement both. Both were intelligent, instinctual, philosophical, Jewish and quick, but Lenny was more conceptual while Mort was more of a straight commentator and analyst. Lenny did voices and characters. Mort did not. Lenny did heroin. Mort did not.

The world is different today. But it hasn’t changed that much in fifty years. And there are enough problems of today that comedy today would have enough material to talk about with meaning and laughs. I would love to see a renaissance of a type of comedy that was intelligent and philosophical and funny. But comedy today is ruled by forces I don’t understand. It’s too controlled and sanitized in this 21st century way. Comedy in the Fifties was sanitized too. My point is maybe that renaissance of intelligent, topical, philosophical comedy may be just over the horizon.

So, for all you future comedians of the renaissance, let me do my part by saying: explore Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce see how they did it. I will write a post about Sahl and Gregory in the near future, but this is about Lenny.

Lenny was impish. He had a child-like quality about him. He had fun being in front of an audience. He did funny voices and made himself laugh. But Lenny was deep. He would do bits about kids sniffing airplane glue to get high. No one did that back then. That gave Lenny an air of danger that made him—what that’s word everyone loves to use?—oh, yeah, Lenny was “controversial”.

Lenny did bits about religion, racism, sex, drugs and popular culture. And these were structured bits with a narrative. Observational humor is great, but Lenny’s “Religions Incorporated” is a classic comedy bit no matter who did it. “How to Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties” was genius because the character Lenny played in the bit said everything every white person was thinking who went to an integrated party in the late 50s, early 60s. The Carnegie Hall Concert is my favorite because Lenny is so relaxed and philosophical. And he isn’t chasing after laughs. He is preaching with humor.

Lenny became a target of the popular culture and they drove him to his death. As detailed in the HBO documentary Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth, Lenny exposed an offer of a bribe, which was a basis of the persecution he suffered. However, his ideas must have been the wood society built at his feet when they burned Lenny at the stake. That’s what they did to heretics in the old days. And they considered Lenny a heretic because Lenny was effective.

So much has been written about Lenny, there is nothing I can add of value. All I can say is Lenny feels very comfortable like an old friend. He reminds me of a time when I was young and hopeful and amazed by so much of the world.

Here are a few of what is available of Lenny on YouTube. The first is Lenny on Steve Allen.

This is the first of seven parts of the Lenny Bruce Performance Film which was performed shortly before Lenny died and is available on DVD.

Remi Gaillard

In my opinion, the best humor has an element of anarchy to it. About a month ago, my friend Guillaume wanted me to watch some videos of Remi Gaillard, beginning more than ten years ago. I’m naturally skeptical when someone wants me to see something because they think I will like it, but, as with my friend Dennis and Lily Tomlin’s “Glenna--A Child of the 60s” back in the winter of 1982, I found myself laughing very hard.

Gaillard is French and very talented with a soccer ball. In fact, his most notable prank was participating in the victorious celebrations from a soccer game disguised as a player and meeting then-president of France, Jacques Chirac. And as this video, titled “Foot”, shows, his talent for kicking a ball is in many ways as skilled and amazing as Will Rogers talent with a rope.

 

But the anarchy comes when Gaillard takes his talent for kicking a soccer ball and applies it to the police. Watch the Montpelier gendarmes chase Gaillard down the street, only to give up.

Gaillard has been arrested many times. But he doesn’t rely solely on his skill with a ball to get laughs or amaze. And, like good slapstick, what makes Gaillard’s comedy so funny is that the pain is real, as you will see with the police at the end of this video.

The sight of two policemen tackling and restraining a man dressed in a butterfly outfit is hilarious. But the seriousness of the situation, which is even funnier to me, is underscored when the cameraman begins running away.

But Gaillard’s anarchy is not just perpetrated upon the police; it has also been perpetrated upon one of America’s most world-famous multi-national corporations.

Even French people and establishments were targets of Gaillard and his associates. And again, it’s funnier when you know the pain is real.

It beats the hell out of “Jackass”, don’t ya think?

If you’re interested in seeing more Remi Gaillard videos, visit his website.

Happy April Fool's

At the meeting pictured above exactly one year ago today, Obama reportedly said to Qaddafi: "In one year I'm going to bomb your country--just kidding, April Fool's!!!"

Lately, I've been having a desire to return to the blog I left so abruptly nearly a year and a half ago. Some things in my life, like the death of my father, to whom a Father's Day tribute launched this endeavor, have changed. Some things have not changed so much.

There is nothing special about this particular post except to reintroduce me to the process. Happy April Fool's Day, everybody.

Terrorists In Our Army? Are They Muslim or Christian?

Hasan looks nuts. He doesn’t look like a terrorist. The look on his face says goofy. It reminds me of Oliver North. Was North a terrorist?


Oh, yeah, I guess he was, wasn’t he?

But North wasn’t a terrorist in the way Muhammad Atta was. Atta certainly didn’t have that pseudo-goofy look at Hasan has. Atta could scare people in a horror movie without an axe, a chainsaw or a hockey mask.

In the other photo Hasan looks like Marlon Brando as Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now”. From all accounts so far, Hasan was psychopathic not terroristic.

Michigan gubernatorial candidate and House Intelligence Committee ranking Republican and overall spiller of national secrets, Pete Hoekstra was on Fox yesterday trying to drive home the false point and expand the foundation of this phony issue that Hasan murdering GIs last week was terrorism.

Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly are all trying to beat the same drum—that terrorists in the military is the new Communists in the State Department is the new Kenyans in the White House.

And we know how that’s going.

Idiots.

Chenemy Combatant

How long is it going to be before Dick and Liz get on Fox or Strapon-opoulos and complain that Obama is to blame for Major Hasan shooting American servicemen at Fort Hood, or complain that Obama secretly and personally encouraged Major Hasan to shoot those servicemen, or complain that Obama secretly shot those servicemen posing as Major Hasan.

Given the nature of these conspiracies, which have not yet been offered by Dick and Liz, I have a conspiracy of my own.

What if Dick used his contacts at the CIA to turn Hasan into a MK-Ultra killer just to be able to try to convince the American people that we are not safe with Obama—the same vaudeville act he and his daughter have been doing for months now, not realizing that vaudeville died long ago.

Or, what if Dick and George developed Hasan into an MK-Ultra killer way back in 2007 and his programming leapt to the “kill stage”?

Michigan Republican Pete Hoekstra, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee yesterday revealed that our intelligence community had been monitoring the emails between Hasan and Yemeni imam and Al Qaeda Tupperware party organizer, Anwar al Awlaki. He reportedly has also launched an investigation.

This comes as a surprise to the Pentagon, which was never told about the monitoring of Hasan. Hoekstra claims the Obama administration is purposefully withholding information on Hasan.

What a fucking opportunist! He is also running for the governorship of Michigan and wants to use these scare tactics to get elected, assuring Michiganers that he is hard on terrorists so he’ll definitely be able to protect the Great Lakes State from Canadians.

Like Hoekstra, Cheney is also running…to stay out of jail for torture and other crimes against humanity, and is using scare tactics—therefore, terrorism—to scare Americans into protecting him from being forced to wear the orange jumpsuit.

Hurry up, Spain!!

The photo above is not only the product of wishful thinking, it is also a tool of visualization for all you people who can bend reality in accordance to their will based on the images they focus their incredible concentrative mental powers on with candles, crystals and psilocybin.

The Astro Turfer

Like the Silver Surfer, Marvel Comics has introduced its new comic book character, the Astro Turfer, seen here with a hangover after a night on the town hall meeting.

While the Silver Surfer roams the galaxy looking for planets for Galactus to consume, the Astro Turfer roams the U.S. looking for health care discussions to obliterate with screaming and shouting.

The Silver Surfer’s work stems from his profession, an astronomer, and his identity is known as Norrin Radd, while the Astro Turfer’s work stems from his role as someone against health care for all.

And while no one knows the Astro Turfer’s identity, many suspect him to be either Joe Lieberman or Barack Obama.

Baa Baa Barack Sheep

There is no blog today. Have a good weekend and remember: one of those sheep up there may be Obama waiting for Marine One to land and for health care reform to be finished.

e(lection dis)Harmony.com

Does Tuesday mean it's over between them?

Keeping Eyes on the Prize

According to MSNBC Obama was not a factor in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. In fact, to extrapolate on that assessment, Obama doesn’t seem to be a factor in much of anything these days—certainly not health care reform.

However, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh and Armey may have been a factor in the very telling election in New York State’s 23rd district. Their candidate, Doug Hoffman, looking like someone arrested on “Dateline: To Catch a Predator” conceded, handing a victory to a Democrat in that district for the first time since the Civil War.

The strange thing about all the brouhaha raised by conservatives in getting Hoffman into the New York 23 race is that district gets absorbed by surrounding Democratic districts in a redistricting based on the 2010 census.

I can’t wait to hear how Beck, Limbaugh and Palin spin the Hoffman loss. Gingrich ought to have a bit of fun with this. Let’s keep the civil war going.

For Democrat losses, Chris Christie is said to be a moderate, a fiscal conservative but not a social conservative, so the Tea Baggers will not make any real headway there until they put tremendous pressure on him and he caves to Birther demands, if that happens.

Bob O’Donnell effectively refused Palin and her brand of conservatism and won anyway over a weak Democrat. However, she will probably take credit for his victory.

Jon Corzine was apparently an unappealing incumbent. His approval was at 39%. There is speculation that his connection to Goldman Sachs may have contributed to his downfall in addition to other issues. The voters are tired of Wall Street.

Bloomberg got a run for his money, literally, by someone without much political power or billionaire bank account. Bloomberg is also another incumbent and is associated with Wall Street.

Bloomberg and Corzine are connected to Wall Street. This does not bode well for Obama in 2010 if he does not get the economy going by then or does not punish Wall Street more harshly than Geithner and the boys have so far.

While the losses of Corzine and Deeds do not necessarily presage the future of the Democratic Party, they do presage the future of similar Democrat candidates—those weak Democrats like Harry Reid, Blanche Lincoln and others who refuse to be tough.

Reid wants to wait until next year on health care. Obama’s response will probably be, “Well, if you say so.”

Some believe this is a bad idea. I entertain the possibility that they want to move Republican refusal to participate in an historic piece of bad bill legislation that the vast majority of Americans want, despite all that poser Tea Bagger nonsense in July and August, as close to the primaries as possible.

A year ago tonight the great Anarchist of Ann Arbor and I discussed our beliefs that the first party to split, thereby creating a third party, would be the Republicans. We may be seeing that materialize right before our eyes. The Tea Baggers will be so incensed by Hoffman’s loss in New York that they will come back in greater numbers and intensity in 2010.

But the Democrats beginning to split between progressive and conservative may become the speculative talk of 2012 if not sooner.

A possible Democrat strategy for 2010—or simply my delusion—is the Democrats may be hoping the conservative wing of the Republican Party will defeat a sufficient number of Republicans in 2010 primaries so that Democrats gain the Republican seat easily in the general election a year from now.

I do not know what the issue for the 2010 general will be right now that will separate the Democrats from the Tea Bagger/Birthers. Certainly health care reform should be decided in favor of the insurance companies by then. There is still time.

And maybe that strategy applies to conservative Democrats as well. Goodbye Lincoln, Bayh and those in the House too numerous to mention. The delusion disclaimer is still in effect.

One thing I believe this election says loud and clear is: Democrats get off your asses, get some guts and do the right things before 2010.

Obama, this means you too.

The Wrong Things

How is it that in a country of 300 million-plus, in a representative democracy of 535 Senators and Representatives, that one man can “kill” something that benefits, well, according to an AP story over the weekend, a whopping two percent of our population.

Well, everybody’s talking about Joe Lieberman exercising his option in the Senate to filibuster this extremely weak health care reform bill that will benefit almost no one which progressives have promised to bend over and vote for just to be loyal democrats.

And Obama talks about how hard change is. While he made small and medium advances on his agenda, his legacy will most likely be judged (by me) on health care reform, Afghanistan, Iraq and the economy. How many times have I and others tried to get him out of the White House and involved in the health care reform process.

But he didn’t and now Lieberman may wreck all that change Obama promised way back when. Didn’t Obama reach out to Lieberman earlier this year and convince democratic leadership to give ol’ Joe some important committee chairmanship, like Homeland Security?

I never graduated Harvard and I’ve never been elected president, but even I knew bi-partisanship was bullshit. Sure, change is hard—especially if you keep fucking it up from the beginning.

Right now I’m watching “The Right Stuff”, the 1983 Phillip Kaufman film based on the 1979 book by Tom Wolfe. And while the film may have taken some artistic license and emphasized the pilot over the scientists and the politicians who made it happen, the fact is without the pilots’ expertise, how different would the space program have been. Armstrong’s piloting of the LEM on the moon with only a few seconds of fuel is a perfect example.

A couple of months ago while watching “Serpico” I wrote that we needed a Frank Serpico in Congress to clean it up and get rid of the corruption.

Now I’m writing that we need a new generation of politicians with, you guessed it, the right stuff.

These new politicians would hold with pride, dignity and integrity, the weighty meaning and solemn responsibility of the office which they would hold. They would be leather jacket-wearing, gum chewing, whiskey drinking courageous hotshots who would push the boundaries, just as Yeager broke the sound barrier, of creating and enacting legislation that helps the people, just like all the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts who also did what no one did before them.

American space exploration since Kennedy’s call to action drew qualified and fearless men and women to the mission.

But when Obama called for Change, no one—not even Obama himself—seems to have heeded that call. With Kennedy’s announcement about the moon shot, we made it to the moon many times. But in this analogy, with Obama’s call for health care reform, we exploded just above the launch tower.

Until we can get some politicians with the right stuff, it may suffice if Obama would simply put Joe Lieberman on the moon.

An Obvious Lie

GOP secret revealed: Republicans don’t want a public option or health care for the poor (including poor white Tea Baggers) because they know there is a Swine Flu vaccine shortage and they want poor people to die from H1N1.

Huffington Post ran a story about Dana Perrino and Swine Flu vaccine shortage which conservative critics of the public option are using as proof that the government cannot run a health care program despite the fact that Medicare, Congressional health care and the military are all government-run.

But what these “conservative critics” failed to mention is the secret and real reason the GOP doesn’t want a public option or health care for everyone or to approve Obama’s nominee for Surgeon General is they know there is a shortage of the Swine Flu vaccine and they want to capitalize on that fact.

Conservative Republicans don’t want poor people to have health care through a public option, but especially single payer, because they want poor people who are uninsured to die from Swine Flu because they know that means there will be more vaccine for the rich.

Republicans want poor people to be forced to die from Swine Flu.

What they also won’t tell you is that Swine Flu re-emerged during the Bush Administration and was re-named “H1N1” because they believed poor people were so uneducated that they would get confused about its meaning.

The “h” and “n” are said to mean “have nots”—the poor in America. 11 means 11 million which is the number of poor in America they hope will die.

Republicans will deny this because they are Republicans and love the rich.

Ask Cheney, Palin, Beck and Limbaugh why they hate the poor and want them to die from Swine Flu and see how they deny it and change the subject by accusing Obama of being Hitler-ish.

Be sure to wash your hands after shaking mitts with a Republican or Blue Dog—they may be trying to infect you if they think you are poor.

There is even some speculation that Rush Limbaugh has become addicted to the vaccine which means the shortage will only increase in the coming months.

There is also speculation that Glenn Beck uses his show to mind control Republicans in the Senate to hold up Obama’s Surgeon General nomination because he too hates poor people because he thinks they’re crybabies about their “disadvantage”.

Senators or Cynictors?

I get angry when I watch the news about health care reform, then I become fatigued by the anger. Unh…I, I…need to go lie down….

I am tired of all this legalized corruption and legalized bribery that enables Senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, among many others, to sabotage health care for Americans who need it because of campaign contributions from the health insurance industry.

I for one think we should call our Congresspoersons and tell then we sincerely believe their adult male of large mammal feces.

What a great photo above, eh. While Jesse Helms took pride in being called “Senator No!”, I think Ben Nelson may take offense at being called “Senator Nose”.

Okay, my apologies—wait, what?—oh, another one:

I don’t know which Ben Nelson is less capable of—health care reform or hair care reform? I mean, is that a really bad toupé or are his hair weaves made of wool?

Badaboom!

But seriously, Obama worked hard to get Lieberman the Chairmanship of Homeland Security. Was this Obama’s attempt to show forgiveness and induce his prized bi-partisanship? Did Rahm make him do it? I don’t get Obama anymore. Is there a Quija board in the White House?

Salon writer Glenn Greenwald was on Rachel Maddow last night (FF to 5:30) and revealed that Bayh’s wife sits on the board of Wellpoint and they own nearly a million dollars of Wellpoint stock and, consequently, Bayh may vote to filibuster for reasons of “fiscal responsibility”.

Obama wanted bi-partisanship but he got Bayh-partisanship. Obama promised transparency, but the only thing completely visible are these guys’ true motives in denying reform.

Bayh and Lieberman should be investigated not only by the Senate Ethics Committee but by the FBI.

The American people (are you listening, progressives—I mean, reading?) need to remember what these Senators have done with their elected responsibility and vote them out. They are corrupt, they do not care about people and they are a cancer.

I will say it louder.

They are a cancer in the body of America!

We need health reform just to cure us of them.

Voting. That’s the real public option.

Single payer!

Single payer!

Single payer!

Single payer!