The Obama Administration: One Step Forward, One Step Back

I’ve always liked Obama as a person, good sense of humor, not a privileged white male, and tried to like him as a President, but it seems like for every step forward his administration takes, there is a corresponding step back. Just a couple of days ago, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, gave an impassioned speech in support of the rights of the LGBT community and lashed out at North Carolina governor Pat McCrory and other governors who are attempting to legally discriminate against gay and transgender Americans.  One step forward and two thumbs up from me.

So what does the Obama administration do next? It turns around and gives war criminal and mass murderer Henry Kissinger the highest honor that the Department of Defense can bestow on a civilian: a Distinguished Public Service Award. This is the man who is responsible for as many as 4 million deaths in three countries. Kissinger’s approval of the illegal bombing of Cambodia in the 1970s set a precedent of international law-breaking and violence that every subsequent President has taken advantage of, including the Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Obama.

Kissinger should be sharing a jail cell with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for crimes against humanity, not receiving medals. One step back.

Trump is the Republican Party Stripped Naked

I find the hair pulling and garment rending by the Republican establishment over Donald Trump becoming their presidential candidate hilarious and totally disingenuous. You would guess from all of the wailing that Trump had somehow betrayed the Republican Party’s core values or insulted Ronald Reagan, but that’s not what’s going on here. Most of Trumps ideas and ideals are straight from the Republican playbook (“The Art of the Lie”) and probably differ little from Rubio or Kasich or McConnell. So why is Mr. Combover despised by so many in his own party?

Republicans are upset with Trump because he dared to break the golden rule of conservatives campaigning for office: Always talk in code. The Code is a laundry list of words and phrases used by Republicans to convey their true values to the faithful without coming across to the rest of us as obviously racist, homophobic, misogynistic or cruel. For instance, when a politician talks about those who have become dependent on welfare or “the takers” or welfare queens, they’re talking about African Americans. If they talk about people attacking America’s core values, waging war against Christmas or East Coast elites, they’re referring to liberals. And when they talk about almost any issue relating to women, the real message is “we must maintain America’s patriarchy at any cost.”

Trump, however, ain’t playing that game. He has thrown away the codebook and blurts out what every racist, misogynistic, homophobic American wants to hear in one and two syllable words. No more talking in code for Trump. He’s going to tell it like it is, and his fellow Republicans are outraged because their horrible, hateful values are now on full display in every Trump speech and interview.

Trump is the Republican Party naked, revealing every ugly blemish, every deformity, every open sore and it is a truly an ugly spectacle. Mainstream Republicans don’t hate Donald for what he says, but for how he says it, and in the end, it might be the one positive thing to come out of Trump’s run for the White House.

Is Science Picking Up Where Religion Leaves Off?

One of the most profound questions humans have pondered since they were able to ponder is the nature of reality.  Is reality the sum of what we can experience through our senses and nothing more or are there worlds that exist beyond the tiny bubble in which we live that can only be experienced under certain conditions, like meditation, prayer, psychedelic drugs or the death of the body?

At some point in our past, and archeological discoveries keep pushing that date farther and farther back in time, humans began worshiping the unknowable  — a creator, nature in all its beauty and cruelty, ancestors, the mystery of death and the purpose, if there was one, of our lives. Religion was born as a way to try and make sense of an existence that seemed otherwise meaningless. Early humans sensed that there was something beyond day-to-day survival and, even though they had no idea what it was, began to create stories to explain the unfathomable in terms others could understand, to try and bring some meaning to our existence on this planet.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century. Religion is, of course, still a significant factor for billions of humans world-wide, and, unfortunately, continues to be a source (or excuse) for violence in many spots on the planet. In the developed world, especially in Scandinavia and western Europe, organized religion is losing its hold on each new generation. Take Sweden, for example. In a 2009 Gallup Pole, a mere 17% of respondents answered “yes” to the question, “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” However, lack of interest in organized religion doesn’t necessarily mean non-belief. In another 2010 poll, 45% of Swedes asked said they believed in some sort higher spiritual power.

The same trend is happening in the United States, although you wouldn’t know it by listening to the mainstream press or the Republican Presidential race.  Millennials are far less religious than their parents, and there is no reason to believe this won’t continue to be the case with every succeeding generation. So while the beginning of the end of organized religion is taking place in western countries, a second phenomena is just underway that ironically may scientifically prove that the mystics, seers and shamans were right all along — reality is not merely what we can see, hear and touch, but exists not separate from our consciousness, but as a result of our consciousness, and may very well exist in other dimensions.

The work of Dr. Adam Lanza, captured in his book, Biocentrism, offers an intriguing theory about the essence of reality that stretches back at least as far as Decartes, the French philosopher, but, he claims, is being confirmed today by experiments in quantum physics.  Lanza believes that “there is no independent external universe outside of biological existence,” and “that what we call space and time are forms of animal sense perception, rather than external physical objects.” In other words, our universe, our reality, is a creation of our consciousness, not the other way around. Lanza’s understanding of quantum physics far exceeds mine, but in his book he explains how certain experiments are showing that elemental particles behave differently depending on whether they are being observed or not.

Other experiments in quantum physics are causing physicists to seriously debate the existence of multiple dimensions that exist within or along side our own. So science is just beginning to unlock the complexity of what we call reality and discovering that it does indeed extends beyond what we see, feel and touch on a daily basis into previously unseen realms.

My own views on religion and the “unseen realms” have changed over the years. I have been in and out of organized religion during my life, but over the past three decades, I would characterize myself as an agnostic teetering on the cliff of atheism. I never made the final leap into the chasm of absolute non-belief because, like most human beings, as much as I tried, I couldn’t convince myself that life is meaningless and death is the absolute end. And I feel I am even now stepping back farther from the cliff’s edge after being exposed to the theories of Lanza and other scientists.

Let me add a personal observation. Humans are, of course, animals. We share characteristics of all mammals, with one distinction; our cognitive abilities. For reasons that could fill a library, human brains have developed thinking skills far beyond the capacity of other mammals, resulting in great cities, poetry, medicine, and Pop Tarts. Our minds (and opposable thumbs) allow us to do amazing things that exceed not only the abilities of our fellow mammals, but their reality, as well.

So one day I decide I want to teach a cow about photography. I go to a field with my laptop, sit down in front of Elsie, and begin explaining to her everything I can find related to photography. I do this 24/7 for ten years. At the end of this time, Elsie moos and moves on to greener pastures. Elsie’s cognitive capabilities are simply not developed enough to even understand my words, let alone the concept of photography. To her, I would simply be some type of annoying animal making noises. My point is, photography is outside of Elsie’s understanding of the world, so it is not a part of her reality and therefore doesn’t exist. This would be true for all non-human mammals. Even though photography does exist in the same world as the cow, it does not exist for the cow.

So why couldn’t this be true of humans? Isn’t it possible that there are beings, knowledge, worlds, even within our reality, that are simply beyond our ability to understand, and therefore, do not exist to us? And perhaps humans occasionally catch a glimpse of the unknowable through dreams or drugs or near death experiences. It’s exciting to think that science is now opening the door a crack to a new understanding of the complexities and mysteries of reality at the same time our belief systems are losing their relevance.  We may be coming to a point where science will take us to places and realizations as amazing as any story we can possibly dream up.

Broken Hand

Broke two bones in my left hand a week ago so my postings will be sparse until the cast comes off in three weeks :-(

The Neighbor - Newest short scary story

How well do you really know your neighbors? This latest short scary story, "The Neighbor" might inspire you to keep a closer eye on the people next door.

The Changing Room - New Short Scary Story

The Patterson's are moving into a turn-of-the-last-century Victorian home that has seen its share of change, but nothing like what Paul experiences when he finds a secret room at That's Going Too Far!

The Upgrade - New Short Scary Story

Al Donner doesn't understand why his boss is sending him to IT, but he'll soon find out, and so can you when you go to They're Only Shadows and read The Upgrade.

Ping - A New Short Scary Story

We've learned not to text and drive, but that's not the only situation where texting can be dangerous, even deadly. Read "Ping," my latest short scary story at They're Only Shadows and you'll never take texting for granted again.

The Nightmare that is Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a despicable human being. With the maturity of a nine-year old and the vocabulary to match, Trump proves day in and day out he is the ringmaster of the current GOP circus masquerading as a Presidential campaign. As if anyone with an IQ over 70 needs additional proof, here are some headlines from Trump supporters on /r/The_Donald subreddit.

If @tedcruz was elected president, his wife would be the sixth lady.

ViveLaFrance Breaking: The end of Ted Cruz >> Washington Times confirms accounts of multiple @tedcruz mistresses as accurate.

Hillary is afraid. Donald has destroyed the career of everyone who has attacked him. She should be afraid.

You can bet your dick that if this scandal was happening to Trump, everyone and their god damn mother would be reporting it and censoring it would be absolutely out of the question. Fuck the MSM.

I would expect to find mini-rants like this in a ninth grader’s notebook or on a restroom wall. The grammar and punctuation mistakes and crude humor only emphasize the fact that Trump supporters are truly the poorly educated he claims to love. Even the few Republicans I know claim they won’t vote for the Donald.

Trump’s success so far has made America the laughing stock of the global community, which is probably something his followers would take pride in. Like a nightmare you can’t wake up from, the petulant man-child from New York City is seizing on the misplaced anger of less educated citizens to stoke his ego and legitimize his bigotry, and it looks as if he will be the Republican candidate for the Presidency. What a world.

America’s Racist Legacy: The Real Reason for the War on Drugs

So here we are, forty-five years after the inception of the war on drugs, after spending tens of billions of dollars, after overseeing the deaths and imprisonment of untold numbers of people, after ravaging numerous Latin American countries, after helping establish and expand bloodthirsty drug cartels, after creating the cocaine epidemic of the seventies and eighties, after jailing tens of thousands of Americans for non-violent drug offenses, after all of that we learn what the war on drugs was really all about: racism.

John Ehrlichman, a former top Nixon aide and central figure in the Watergate scandal, confessed to a reporter in 1994 that the primary reason for initiating the war on drugs was to oppress Nixon’s primary enemies, blacks and hippies. This is what Ehrlichman said:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

If this doesn’t make you ashamed of being an American, you must be a Trump supporter. The toll that racism has taken on this country since its earliest days is incalculable, and in 2016 we have presidential candidates appealing once again to the bigotry and hatred felt by a segment of white Americans. It’s shameful and disgusting and is cause for much of the rest of the world to see us as the village idiot of the global community. 

Thinking people have long argued that the war on drugs was racist in nature, but even they believed incarcerating large numbers of people of color was a byproduct of a war that’s primary mission was to end the illegal drug trade. They were wrong. It was from the very beginning a tool to oppress and disrupt the lives of American citizens who were perceived to be a threat to the establishment.

Perhaps the saddest part of all of this is that no one will ever be brought to justice for this major crime against U.S. citizens. Like the perpetrators of the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crises, the bigger your crime, the more likely you are to go unpunished. And many citizens of this country continue to harbor racist beliefs and support leaders who espouse white supremacy. Nixon’s legacy lives on in today’s Republican presidential candidates.

Newest Short Scary Story: The Baker Family Reunion

Depending on how you feel about your relatives, family reunions can either be a fun occasion or a pain in the butt, but rarely are they fatal. Then there's the Baker family... Check out my newest short story at They're Only Shadows.

Will Our Next President Have the Courage to End the War on Drugs?

The war on drugs has been a hopeless boondoggle since its inception in the mid-seventies. It has syphoned off billions of dollars over the past 40 years that could have gone to much more useful endeavors such as renovating America’s crumbling infrastructure or funding clean energy sources.

And who has benefited from this unwinnable and costly war? As the chart above clearly shows, a major benefactor has been the nation’s prison system, and in recent years, a growing number of privately run prisons around the country. This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg. Local law enforcement organizations have hauled in tens of millions of dollars by seizing property and cash from both guilty and innocent suspects. A huge government bureaucracy was built that employs thousands of people who have a stake in keeping the drug war going. And the war has given rise to numerous vicious drug cartels that spread chaos and violence as they fight for their piece of the illegal drug trade.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that people of color are the primary victims of our drug war. Millions of young black and brown men sit in prison cells learning how to be better criminals instead of gaining job skills and contributing to their communities.

There is some hope. The movement to end the war on drugs is coming from the bottom up as more and more states move to decriminalize pot, a substance that is still considered as dangerous as heroin by the federal government. We now need a President who will end this fruitless and wasteful effort and channel that money into projects that benefit all Americans. 

Unrestrained Capitalism is Killing America

The myth of the “liberal media” suffered another blow yesterday when CBS CEO Les Moonves was recorded telling a group of investors that the sudden rise of Donald Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Let that sink in for a moment. America is going down in flames, but CBS doesn’t care because it makes for great TV.

This is capitalism at it’s finest — screw everything as long as we’re in the black. And I would guess that this is the sentiment of other media owners as well. The media has never been liberal. It’s a business run by people whose only goal is making a profit and satisfying investors. That’s it. Public service? Ha! Actually informing viewers? Forgedaboutit.

Bible belt voters run screaming from the room at the mention of “socialism,” but don’t seem to have a clue that this country is being run into the ground by greedy amoral capitalists like Moonves.  And that’s the key. There is no room for morality in capitalism. There is no incentive to do the right thing if the right thing interferes with making a profit, so we ship jobs overseas, resist a living minimum wage and create loopholes to keep from paying our fair share of taxes. It’s all about the bottom line.

Add the amoral nature of capitalism to the fact that only six companies own over 90 percent of the media in America, and you have a near monopoly that provides the information and entertainment that will bring in the highest profits and keep the masses resting numbly in front of their TV screens.

Trump is a disaster for this country, but Moonves and others are making money hand over fist by giving The Donald tons of free airtime. Because Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that might even try to shake up the currant dynamic, he’s on the media’s enemies list, receiving negative attention when he gets mentioned at all.

Unrestrained capitalism is destroying America. Isn’t it time we try something different?

Unforgivable, a new short scary story

Some transgressions can be quickly forgotten, but others are unforgivable. Check out my latest short scary story at They're Only Shadows.

The Revenant and Hollywood’s Treatment of American History

When I walked out of the theater after watching “The Revenant,” I was in a state of awe. Taut, thrilling, beautifully filmed, amazing characters — I was really impressed with the film and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio’s heart wrenching performance. Now that I’ve had a few days to think about it, however, my take on the movie is evolving, not regarding the excellent work of everyone involved in the production, but about the storyline subtexts.

“The Revenant” actually has much in common with the 1972 movie “Jeremiah Johnson” starring Robert Redford. Both feature a white man dissatisfied with civilization who escapes to the untamed western mountains. As mountain men, Johnson and Glass are attracted to Native Americans and their culture, each marrying a tribal woman. After a cataclysmic event, a bear attack in Glass’s case, Johnson leads white settler through sacred native land, they must endure unimaginable hardships and violence to survive. Each movie ends with a resolution that is both satisfying, and at the same time questionable, knowing how much the journey has cost each man.

In both “The Reverent” and “Jeremiah Johnson,” each protagonist is a white man who can’t help but have a foot in both the racist white civilization from which they came and the dying Native American culture, which they aspire to. It is in each case, however, a white man’s story. It feels as though these two movies, and others, like “Dancing with Wolves,” are Hollywood’s very weak and anglo-centric attempt at apologizing for the genocide of Native Americans. It’s as if they’re saying, “Wait, we weren’t all racist, genocidal maniacs.”

It is, however, a lame and insulting attempt. Think about a movie where a Nazi soldier hides some Jews and despises Hitler. It could be an intriguing movie, but is a film about a do-gooder Nazi any kind of apology for the horrors of the Third Reich? Not all the Nazis were bad. So what?

We, our white ancestors, committed genocide on a national scale and making some movies about good-guy whites during that period only distracts us from the reality of our crime. America has yet to come to grips with our treatment of Native Americans from nearly the moment the Pilgrims landed here to this very day where they are still living in atrocious conditions on reservations. “The Revenant” is a story about a good white man vs. an evil white man. The Native Americans are mostly props for historical authenticity, but don’t be tricked into believing this is their story. That movie has yet to be made.

New scary short "The Imaginary Friend"

Did you have an imaginary friend as a child or were you one? Read "The Imaginary Friend" at They're Only Shadows.

The Rise of Fascism American Style

Love him or hate him (and I don’t think there is any in between), Donald Trump has stirred up the normally stagnant political waters like no one in my lifetime. For those of us appalled by the idea of an unhinged, racist real estate mogul sitting in the Oval Office, it feels like we’re watching an out of control train careening down a mountainside to its inevitable explosive demise. Even Republicans like Mitt Romney are starting to panic, although, as others have pointed out, Trump is the monster the Republican Party built and there’s no way they’re going to get him back in the lab to take him apart.

The most frightening aspect of the Donald’s run is how his message of hate, exclusion, racism and violence resonates with so many Republicans. I’m sure intellectuals and leftists in Germany during the thirties were thinking the same thing. “How can so many German’s find Hitler and his policies appealing?”

Although the lion’s share of blame for Trump rests with the Republican Party, Democrats have to shoulder some responsibility as well. Over the past thirty years, Democrats have failed to offer a clear alternative vision to an American public growing  more and more disillusioned with politics and politicians. The problem exists on both the left and right, and it is manifesting itself in support for the non-establishment politicians, Trump and Sanders. Our government is dysfunctional, and Americans are slowly realizing that they can’t count on the government to heal itself, and are opting for true outsiders. The problem is, it’s left the door open for a guy like Trump with his fascist tendencies and racist appeal, a charismatic strong man promising to fix things in Washington and make America great again.

What Democrats know and now some Republicans are starting to realize is that the ego-driven Trump is playing a very dangerous game, and playing the conservative base for suckers. The only one who wants to see Donald Trump become President is Donald Trump’s ego.

Getting Away With Murder

A serial killer has found a unique way to evade capture. Find out how at They're Only Shadows.

Check out this new short scary story

The body of a woman is dug up in Joe Garner's backyard. Who is she and why is she there? Find out at They're Only Shadows.

Trump Taps the Rich Vein of Anti-intellectualism in America

Donald Trump loves him some poorly educated people. Of course he does. They make up the base of his supporters. Scammers, con artists, grifters, they all love the poorly educated because they are the easiest marks, the ones who, even knowing the 3 shell game is rigged, will play anyway.  On a larger scale, that same mentality explains why poorly educated Republicans continuously vote against their best interests in election after election, and why Southern red states are at the bottom of the list in every measure of economic viability and livability.

Anti-intellectualism is as American as apple pie, and Donald Trump has found that vein to tap, and it’s a rich one. Intellectuals are haughty Europeans sipping lattes and smoking pipes. Real Americans like to get their hands dirty and resent what they feel is the condescending attitude of the educated class. God, guns and guts are what America is all about, and Trump knows that mentality all too well.

Even the escalating language about “punching protesters in the face” and the real violence often seen at Trump rallies used against protestors is cleverly designed to appeal to the “poorly educated” and their Wild West delusions. Trump knows his supporters are sick and tired of whiny liberals and their political correctness. Debating issues is for wussies. Sometimes a fist to the face is the only way to settle a debate.

 

Trump recently said he could kill someone and not loose any support, and I think he’s right. Trump’s great triumph already is that despite being an elite billionaire from Gotham, he has become the emblem and icon of the poorly educated whites in America, the hideous representation of their frustration, anger and helplessness that this country is changing in ways they don’t like. Donald Trump is a master manipulator of people, using this talent to lead the Republican field of Presidential candidates. Will it be enough to win him the White House? These are strange and uncertain times.