The following article was printed in the Four Corner's Free Press December 2008 issue:
The day after the Election, I was at work and found myself subjected to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. I heard Rush referring to the previous evening’s joyful masses at Chicago’s Grant Park as “ten thousand Bolsheviks.”
It floored me. The claim is (idiotic and) nothing but pure age-old, boiler-plate, hate mongering! As unjustifiable as using WWII to rationalize invading a country that was no strategic threat to the United States. Yet, he, and too many others, get away with spreading such incredibly twisted lies and re-fabricated versions of reality. Rush & friends have perfected an art form of grasping a 10 degree snippet of fact and transmuting that snippet into a sellable version of their desired whole truth and nothing but -- but, it totally ignores the other 350 degrees of vexing issues and facts.
It’s terrible and people need to stop letting them get away with dumbing down the national dialogue. I wonder how they can manage to continue projecting that sense of certainty given the collective neo-conservative record of disastrous world & future damaging actions?
Consider the 9/11 debacle when “God given certainty” coupled with far right-wing passions, fueled by powerful corporate interests, overruled cooler minds and the moments true imperative - to chase after a hellishly destructive and futile Iraqi lost grail misadventure.
A less ideologically blinded approach would have remained focused on the real issue. Namely, getting that group of thugs who perpetrated the heinous acts of 9/11. Instead, Bush’s approach turned that scum into a world hero for Islamic down trodden, even elevating Bin Laden’s wildest rantings about western intentions into fulfilled prophecies. All the while sowing seeds of hatred, squandering our precious resources and tearing USA’s world image into that of a bully.
May we ask: where does America profit in any of this Iraq mess? Sure some corporations are doing great, but what about America and Americans? What has this profited us? Why be so angry at Democrats for wanting to try another path? Perhaps one with less destruction? Why the anger and lies demonizing those dreams? Or has endless war become the goal?
Than, there is the great distraction: the Abortion Issue. Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America says: "We face a president and Congress more hostile to unborn children, to marriage, to religious freedom, to free speech, to protecting our country than has ever existed in our history." All because Obama believes women do have a right to a certain autonomy over their bodies, offspring and health. Wendy is absolute, certain and just rarin' for a fight, yet oblivious to so much more. In the long ago words of Rachel Richardson Smith: “I wonder how abortion got to be the greatest of all sins? What about poverty, ignorance, hunger, weaponry?” Thirty years later we need to add: What about our steady escalation of world violence along with its grief and starvation, or the great crisis of health our planet Earth’s Biosphere is suffering?
On another front, is the right-wing’s shrill trumpeting of the sanctity of the Free Market. Where the heck is this “Free-Market” in today’s mega-corporate dictated economy? Free Market is a whole bunch of businesses competing with each other ~ who’s kidding who: “Free-Market” doesn’t exist in this teetering global economy of corporation giants.
President Bush says: "Whenever reforms are recommended we need to be guided by this simple fact: the best way to solve our problems, solve the people’s problems is for there to be economic growth. And, the surest path to that growth is free market capitalism."
The “best way to solve our problems” is to increase consumption? Think about it, that’s the recipe for cancer. Yes, unfettered free market capitalism does a wonderful job of exploiting and consuming resources at ever increasing rates, like there’s no tomorrow. But, there is a tomorrow. And, like it or not, we’re the ones waking up to it. And all the self deception in the world will not change the reality that Earth cannot sustain another century like the last.
Ignoring the world our children will inherit and misdirecting anger won’t help. Damn the Rush L. & friends approach of willful ignorance and contrived rage. Learn about what Earth monitoring data tell us. Get to know about the condition of our Biosphere, that biological web of life, land, water and air that is our life-support system. God gave us this Earth to live in, we have become its custodians. Wouldn’t it be good to start paying attention to this Earth? Why not try to learn from each other, rather than framing everyone else as an enemy? We can choose to stand United, or divided we’ll fail. It is that simple.
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Recently, I was introduced to the BBC Video "EARTH: THE BIOGRAPHY"
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/earth-the-biography/all/01
One of our society's greatest (and most dangerous) short coming is its general oblivion to our Earth, its biosphere (and how our life depends on them.). This series is a good introduction into our incredible earth and its life sustaining processes - upon which our eonomy is dependent.
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