a review of 2013 and the hope for a better future:
THIS IS A PIECE ABOUT CERTAIN ASPECTS OF...
AMERICAN SOCIETY AS IT EVOLVED IN THE YEAR now coming to its end, and our need to recognize some uncomfortable truths. First of all: through0ut the year I began to recognize racism as it exists now, not as it did back when I was a young man and had the opportunity of marching with Martin Luther King in the streets of the south. The time has come to identify and condemn white racism and separate the race hustlers from those seriously concerned about the lives and safety of all individuals, black or white against the recent rash of white policemen using lethal force killing unarmed black men by use of a choke hold on Eric Gardner or the gunning-down of two unarmed youngsters Michael Brown and Tamar Rice, and find a way to move in the year ahead beyond habits of complaint and blame to the creation of enduring solutions, to lay our weapons aside for awhile, and seek a way to return to the confident exuberant style of America that once believed we could have racial justice and happiness too.
Out there in the wider world there were other problems, as well. True to the principles of conflict, an often bewildering variety of social and political factions - both at home and abroad - bartered one another for position and victory for, as the jargon goes "dominance." Born from an especially brutal al Qaeda faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) began terrorizing swaths of Syria and Iraq with the public, cold-blooded execution of Westerners. While in Syria, Bashor al-Assad, the Syrian strongman and President and General Secretary of the Ba'th Party continued to torture and slaughter his fellow citizens, exercising tyranny in Syria to sustain the rule of his minority party. It will take a Community of Nations to rid the World of men like this, and we must begin now.
On the home front, there was the ever-present junior United States Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz; who continued to remind us of a Republican United States Senator from the State of Wisconsin by the name of Joseph McCarthy, both of whom who are unworthy of ever being termed as Statesman, their purpose was the unraveling process of fragmentation and dis unification on the battlefield of boast, pretension, and ostentation, not service to the country. In order to return Statesmen to political office, we must stop and think before we go and vote. Otherwise, we will get exactly what we have asked for, harlequins instead of heroes, buffoons and braggarts instead of steadfast stewards of true leadership.
The unraveling process continued with disheartening recent revelations about the Central Intelligence Agency and the miss use of their so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques by misleading the public, Congress, and even members of the Executive Branch with regard to depriving prisoners of sleep, rectal feeding, and water boarding. This burst forth on the national scene shortly after the National Football League had to deal with the problem of domestic violence when a Baltimore Ravens running back by the name of Ray Rice was caught on video punching his then-fiance, now-wife, Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino hallway and then dragging her unconscious body into an elevator.
With the bursting forth of these two events we have, once again, let ourselves down and settled for less than we ought to be. The ferocious logic of men like Dick Cheney not only led us into a war based upon lies which slaughtered thousands of innocent people, it also polluted the notion of justice for all through the use of torture and bastardized what America stands for by lack of a fair trial, wherein those who may have been innocent were deemed guilty without proof of guilt. The solution to the problem of Dick Cheney is a rather simple one: whenever you see his old and stale face voicing the vision of his America on your television channel, stop for a moment or two, then switch your remote to seek out a voice who actually is worth listening to.
As for Ray Rice, he represents the Dumb Ox theory of what he thinks real-men ought to be. If you don't like what your domestic partner did or had to say, then with icy dispatch, deal with the problem by beating her unconscious. And then, if you happen you lose your job for what you have done, the money, fame, and all of that - cry like the baby that you actually are and beg forgiveness from the one you say you love, then hope for the best. To paraphrase the words of William Shakespeare: A coward by any other name is still a coward. And that is exactly what Ray Rice has turned out to be. Men like Rice ought to be forever erased from our collective memory by simply tossing them into jail, where they really belong until they are deemed worthy of release.
In the year that lays ahead, perhaps we need to learn how to stop shouting and learn how to listen. It is time to take a stance and ostracize the swine who multiply through division; to begin to honor good taste, hard work, and all those men and women who cherish human decency. ..
...Otherwise, next year will turn out to be much the same as this one was...
...And that thought alone is a god damned shame...
Out there in the wider world there were other problems, as well. True to the principles of conflict, an often bewildering variety of social and political factions - both at home and abroad - bartered one another for position and victory for, as the jargon goes "dominance." Born from an especially brutal al Qaeda faction, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) began terrorizing swaths of Syria and Iraq with the public, cold-blooded execution of Westerners. While in Syria, Bashor al-Assad, the Syrian strongman and President and General Secretary of the Ba'th Party continued to torture and slaughter his fellow citizens, exercising tyranny in Syria to sustain the rule of his minority party. It will take a Community of Nations to rid the World of men like this, and we must begin now.
On the home front, there was the ever-present junior United States Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz; who continued to remind us of a Republican United States Senator from the State of Wisconsin by the name of Joseph McCarthy, both of whom who are unworthy of ever being termed as Statesman, their purpose was the unraveling process of fragmentation and dis unification on the battlefield of boast, pretension, and ostentation, not service to the country. In order to return Statesmen to political office, we must stop and think before we go and vote. Otherwise, we will get exactly what we have asked for, harlequins instead of heroes, buffoons and braggarts instead of steadfast stewards of true leadership.
The unraveling process continued with disheartening recent revelations about the Central Intelligence Agency and the miss use of their so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques by misleading the public, Congress, and even members of the Executive Branch with regard to depriving prisoners of sleep, rectal feeding, and water boarding. This burst forth on the national scene shortly after the National Football League had to deal with the problem of domestic violence when a Baltimore Ravens running back by the name of Ray Rice was caught on video punching his then-fiance, now-wife, Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City casino hallway and then dragging her unconscious body into an elevator.
With the bursting forth of these two events we have, once again, let ourselves down and settled for less than we ought to be. The ferocious logic of men like Dick Cheney not only led us into a war based upon lies which slaughtered thousands of innocent people, it also polluted the notion of justice for all through the use of torture and bastardized what America stands for by lack of a fair trial, wherein those who may have been innocent were deemed guilty without proof of guilt. The solution to the problem of Dick Cheney is a rather simple one: whenever you see his old and stale face voicing the vision of his America on your television channel, stop for a moment or two, then switch your remote to seek out a voice who actually is worth listening to.
As for Ray Rice, he represents the Dumb Ox theory of what he thinks real-men ought to be. If you don't like what your domestic partner did or had to say, then with icy dispatch, deal with the problem by beating her unconscious. And then, if you happen you lose your job for what you have done, the money, fame, and all of that - cry like the baby that you actually are and beg forgiveness from the one you say you love, then hope for the best. To paraphrase the words of William Shakespeare: A coward by any other name is still a coward. And that is exactly what Ray Rice has turned out to be. Men like Rice ought to be forever erased from our collective memory by simply tossing them into jail, where they really belong until they are deemed worthy of release.
In the year that lays ahead, perhaps we need to learn how to stop shouting and learn how to listen. It is time to take a stance and ostracize the swine who multiply through division; to begin to honor good taste, hard work, and all those men and women who cherish human decency. ..
...Otherwise, next year will turn out to be much the same as this one was...
...And that thought alone is a god damned shame...
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