NRA's Nice Shot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKrrUwTHWxk


The first causality of clenched fists is truth.

I Have A (Wet) Dream

                There had been some discovered sexual impropriety by a member of the extended family, and as you may imagine, it came up as a topic of conversation.  She turned to me and said didn’t you work with sexual offenders for seven years?  Yes, I affirmed that I had.  Well what do you think about this behavior and what can be done about it?  Not much was the short answer. 

                First, infidelity is not illegal and extremely common.  His sexual choices were with women over 18 and there was no perversion that would be defined as illegal, or even risqué. 

So, she lamented, there is really nothing that can be done for a person who constantly cheats on his wife?  There is no way to change him? 

The changes regarding sexual attitudes in this country aren’t going to be made by changing one man.  They must be made on a societal level.  That conversation is not a short one.

                Why not, she wanted to know?  I thought that you would have some answers since you worked with sexual offenders for several years.  What did you do to cure them? 

Nothing cures a person’s sexual preferences and that is my point.  There will always be people with deviant sexual attractions, just as there will always be people who own guns who shoot other people.  Prevention and how, we as a society, approach the topic of sex are the only things that really make any difference.  There is no way to cure one individual sexual predator or sexual deviant because the sex drive is innate.  As it must be for the promulgation of the species, any species.  If you want to protect the innocent or affect the behavior of sexual deviants, society, as a whole, needs a different approach to the topic of sex than we currently have.  That is not going to be easy to do because there is so much information that needs to be communicated just to get a basic foundation on the topic. 

                Imagine it like this, you are an accountant and I know the basics of what an accountant does, but if I wanted you to tell me all about accounting so I could do it myself that would take a long time.  Yeah it would, she said, I would suggest that you go to school and get an accounting degree.  That’s my point exactly.  To understand what goes into changing or preventing deviant sexual choices there is a lot that needs to be covered.  But it’s easy for me to grasp that I’m not an accountant and I wouldn’t understand everything that goes into it.  Sex, however, is a different story.  Everyone in this room is sexually active and few people will admit that they are going to need years of serious academic study on the subject.  This is because we are a sex saturated society.  There are no beer commercials that state, “Sharpen your pencils, because after a few Coors lights you are going to pay much closer attention to detail and be better at math.”  Beer commercials, most commercials for that matter, know that sex sells. So, there are beer commercials in which a woman, defined as beautiful, walks into the room in her underwear/swimsuit and goes to the fridge to get a cold Coors light off the bottom self.  Bending over at the waist of course.  And she stands up and turns to the camera with hard nipples and says, “If the mountains are blue boys, your balls won’t be, because Coors light makes me so horny!” 

                That is as laughable as the accounting commercial, except nobody laughs.  Instead, lots of guys think, I’ll drink me some Coors light and then be able to have sex with an attractive stranger.  Or something along those lines, all relating (insert product here) to heightened sexual prowess. The point being that you cannot retroactively deal with someone’s sexual deviance, in other words, you cannot unfuck this situation, literally. 

                The only way to deal with the problem of sexual deviance, large or small, in our society is for society as a whole to embrace a movement that changes the way we think, talk and act as sexual beings. We need a Martin Luther King Jr. of sexual reformation to be giving a well-attended and publicized speech on the Mall in Washington D.C. that says,

                (in MLK’s speaking cadence)

                I have a dream!

                That I have a hardon,

                And it’s not as bad as it seems!

                I have a dream!

                That one day I will be judged,

                Not by the density, duration, and distance of my pecker!

                But by how I use it in a sexually appropriate context!

                I have a dream!

                That women will be judged by the beauty of their character,

                Not by the curve of their booty!

                I have a dream!                

                That we will one day peddle our products,

                Not by the pedophiliac sexualization of enteral youth!

                But by their utility for the society that utilizes them!

                I have a dream!

                That will we define what is profitable,

                Not by what elongates the shadow of our miniscule, inconsequential, individual egos!

                But by what promotes Liberty for all and does not pervert justice as a privilege for the few!

                I have a dream!

                But then I wake up and none of that shit is actually happening.  It’s going to be a long road to get there.  We are in the infantile stages of recognizing and granting all persons their inalienable rights on topics concerning sex. 

                What about the LGBTQ movement and the fact that gay marriage has been legalized?  Isn’t that a lot of progress on changing how we discuss the topic of sex in this country, she queered?

                The legalization of gay marriage and the LGBTQ movement are the embryotic stages of the reformation that needs to occur concerning how this society addresses sex.  The path that history had to take to get to MLK’s I Have a Dream speech started with the beginnings of the abolitionist movement in the 1700’s.  To get from there to the Civil Rights march on Washington in 1963 you had to have a lot of things occur throughout history. 

                You had to have the rise of the abolitionist movement that prompted the Northern states to outlaw slavery.  You had to have the Unites States pass a law outlawing the importing of newly captured Africans to be sold as slaves throughout the country.  You had to have Nat Turner’s rebellion and John Brown’s uprising.  You have to have Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad.  You had to have the Civil Fucking War.  The Emancipation Proclamation.  You had to have the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments to the Constitution.  You had to have Fredrick Douglas, the Dredd Scott decision, the race riots in St. Louis, Jim Crow laws.  You had to have W.E.B DuBois, Marcus Garvey and the rise of the nation of Islam.  You had to have WWI and WWII.  All of these things and many more paved the way for the march on Washington in 1963.  And the fight was far from over.

                Future generations will ask their history teachers, “Did people really discriminate because of genitals?”  That teacher will answer, “it was a backward time with a lot of backward thinking.  The high electrified dark ages.” 

                In order to get to a point where we actually address all the harm that is done in our society by the way we address the topic of sex, and there is much, will need to come to a radical new way of thinking about the topic. 

                That won’t happen in this country, she stated.  There are too many religious people who feel too strongly on the subject and they have their holy books to back them up.

                That was the same thing that was said about the abolitionist movement.  Many preachers, in fact most preachers, preached from the pulpit, quoting scriptures about the virtues and God giving blessing of own slaves.  Those holy books tell a story of time when slavery was a common practice among almost all civilized peoples.  Even Jesus said slaves should abbey their masters.  There are way more Biblical justifications in support of slavery than there are in opposition to same sex sexual acts.  Yet, no preacher I know of today stands in the pulpit and gives God’s blessing on the act of one human being owning other human beings.  The people adjusted to new way of thinking about their holy books and they will again.  And they should. 

                Well where and how does this reformation you speak of get started, she asked? 

                It already has but there will be a long fight before things are put right.

                How do we go about making a difference now?  Do we just say, fuck it, that isn’t happening yet and there is nothing we can do?

                Hell no, be part of the solution.  Examine, openly and honestly your options and beliefs about sex.  Be willing to challenge them and be willing to learn.  Don’t do this in isolation.  It doesn’t work that way.  Engage those around on the topic.  That’s how any difference, ever, has been made.  

There is no gate, stupid.

               Stupid Watergate is a term coined by John Oliver several months ago in a joke about the Trump administration Russian collusion scandal.  The joke was funny and I like John Oliver’s sense of humor.  That being said, referring to modern political scandals with the suffix gate takes away the seriousness of the situation.  The suffix gate has lost all meaning in American culture for several reasons. This first being it’s obvious and hyperbolic overuse.  Second, many Americans living in 2017 do not know or understand their own or world history, therefore, they do not grasp the full gravity which should come with the comparison.  Finally, because of the first to reasons, this political age needs its scandals to have a more well branded moniker as an icon for the current scandals.  I suggest Tower, as in Trump Tower, the stinking, steaming pile of bullshit upon which the current President resides in the top floor.  From now on I will refer to this as the Russian Tower scandal.

                One of the premises of Oliver’s joke is the question of whether those in the Trump administration/family are so stupid as to get themselves tied up in such an obviously illegal and unethical situation.  The answer is that they are not stupid at all.  They have assessed the modern political reality in the United States with Machiavellian psychopathic clarity.  Their analysis, which is sadly on point, determined that shame is no longer a viable persuasive tool in American politics.  This is a big deal.  Without shame as a border between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, acceptable behavior is redefined in absolute Machiavellian terms, the ends justify any means necessary. 

                What killed shame as a viable persuasive tool in the American Political Theater?  There were a multitude of afflictions which lead to shame’s eventual demise.  One is the daily hyperbolic sensualizing of events on what are considered news outlets.  Second is the relentless ideology of the profit motive within the corporations that control media outlets.  Third is the ubiquitous invasion of personal privacy, real or imagined.  Fourth is the partisan divisions which have given credence to black and white thinking.  Finally, the natural death of nuance that occurs when a people are not adequately taught history and as a result develop poor long term cohesive planning skills. 

                The result has been that American politics and in many cases American life has become an embodiment of a phrase from the opening monologue of the movie Patton, “Americans have never tolerated a man who lost and laughed.  Americans love a winner! Always have, always will.”  While this sentiment makes an excellent battle cry for soldiers you are sending to fight and die, it is a disastrous way for a society to function.  It is this mentality that propelled Trump and his minions to the White House.  Trump’s entire brand is based on the concept, not the reality, of winning.  Trump succeeds to this end by defining whatever he does as winning.  Much like Charlie Sheen.  This is the exact approach that his team used to steal the election and they will make no apology for it.  This not making an apology for it is one of the important reasons why they continue to get away with it.  Don Jr. comes out and says yeah, I met with a hostile foreign government to aide my father in winning the election, so what, it worked. 

                The saddest fact is that the American people are so jaded, divided, overwhelmed, empathy eroded, sacred, and our system is so corrupt that it will work.  It will continue to work for as long as Trump stays in office and those who follow him will adopt his tactics and increase them to absurdity and beyond. 

                This Russian Tower scandal will be the least of the scandals that come out of this administration, so I say we do right by our President and his lifelong goal of promoting his brand and drop the gate and rebrand his scandals appropriately.  

Time Traveling Alien Anthropologist

                He sat down at my table at the coffee shop where I was reading a book and taking a break from my bike ride.  “What is two plus two?” he asked.  “A mathematical equation,” I replied.  His thin lips curled into a small smile.  I’m visiting here do you mind if I ask you a few questions

                No, as long as I can ask a few myself.  Where are you visiting from?

                Form a distant time and planet.

                Really?  So, what brings you to this particular intersection of time and space?

                Research, I’m an anthropologist whose specific area of study is human origins and history.

                From the future, eh?  Wouldn’t happen to have a line on this year’s Super Bowl winner, would you?

                Super Bowl? Is that a reference to one of the primitive contest of speed and strength that your society frequently and with much fanfare likes to engage in?

                Yeah, we shortened all that up and just call it football, but your description is accurate.

                I don’t the winner of any particular contest but the idea as a whole is part of my study.

                Why would you research bring you to this particular time if you are able to travel to any?

                This is what your calendar refers to as 2017 BC, correct?

                If you are looking for 2017 BC you missed by about 4,000 years buddy.  You may need to tweak those dials on your time machine.

                Hmm, I’ve been here for a couple of your weeks and all of the other data confirms that this is the year 2017 BC.

                It is 2017…AD not BC.

                AD?

                After Death

                The death of what?

                Jesus Christ

                I’ve come across that name many times in my research.  He is a hero, of sorts.  Elevated to cult status by the superstitious.  Revered with monuments and symbols throughout this society.  He gained notoriety when he was executed by the rulers.

 

                Never heard it preached that way myself, but that is the Christ story in a nuthouse.  That’s why this is referred to as AD, After the death of Christ.  BC refers to the time before Christ.  What did you think it meant?

                BC stands for Before Collapse.

 

                Oh, Before the collapse of what?

                Human civilization on this planet.

                You paint a rosy picture.  You should be running for office.  So, when does human civilization collapse on this planet?  It’s been a question I’ve been curious about.

                The first interstellar voyagers leave this planet somewhere between 2084 and 2184 on your calendar.  Ancient history is not an exact science so there is a range given by the best data we could collect.

                What’s so interesting about this time that you decided to come to now?

                The calendar years between 2017 and 2024 are the years when the events occurred that accelerated the collapse of human civilization on this planet.  My research is aimed at better understanding what daily life was like here leading up to those events.

                What events are you talking about specifically?

                The dramatic increase of intra and interspecies conflicts that disrupted the planetary support systems and made human civilization inevitably unstainable.  I have observed that the occupying troops are already here in great numbers and we know that is one of the accelerants of violent conflict.

                Occupying troops?  Where did you see them at?

                They have been in great numbers everywhere I have gone.

                If there were occupying troops in the United States I would know about them.  What do they look like?

                You have not seen the uniformed soldiers that are openly carrying weapons and drive specifically marked military vehicles? They are ubiquitous every place I’ve been on the continent.

                I don’t know about the rest of the continent but I’ve not seen any occupying troops and I have lived here my whole life.

                There’s one right there.  He pointed out the coffee shop window at a patrol car that had pulled up to the curb with two police officers getting out.

                Those aren’t occupying troops, that’s the police.

                What is the difference?

                The police aren’t soldiers they are just law enforcement.

                Are your laws so unjust that you need armed and uniformed soldiers to force people to follow them?

                Well, I never thought of it like that but I guess we do.  It’s just the way it’s always been and they aren’t really soldiers.

                They wear uniforms?

                Yes

                They openly carry weapons?

                Yes

                Do they communicate with a central command?

                They radio dispatch, I suppose, or dispatch radios them.

                Are they able to stop, question, search, detain and execute other persons who are not in uniform?

                Cops do shoot people.  A lot more lately, but they are not supposed to.  They can stop, question, search and arrest you though.

                Are you allowed to resist them if they do so?

                Not if you don’t want to get shot.  You do have the right to remain silent.

                Would you consider that resistance?

                No, more self-preservation.

                Then why do you not consider them occupying soldiers?

                Because they aren’t foreign and they aren’t in the military.

                What makes them different than the military?

                The color of their uniforms.

                Why does it make a difference if they are foreign or not?  From my study of your contemporary maps the borders of what you call countries are primarily arbitrary and fluid.

                The borders are not really arbitrary, they were agreed upon in treaties and such.  Also, I haven’t known them to be fluid.      

   

                Has your country always had the same borders?

                No, we started out at 13 colonies and then expanded west.

                If your borders are able to expand then they are also able to contract and that would make them fluid.  What’s the difference between what you called a colony and what your map defines as a state?

                They were colonies under English rule but after the revolution they became states.

                So, the borders of the country of England used to be on this continent?

                I see what you are saying, the borders have been and can definitely be fluid.  But that hasn’t happened for a long time.

                That’s a very subjective view of time.  What you call Alaska wasn’t part of this country until 1959. 

                I never really thought of it that way.  I guess I just took for granted that the U.S. has always had 50 states.   

            

                Take from me and I’m a time traveler.  Always doesn’t exist. 

                How do you travel through time anyway?

                By utilizing gravity and the curvature of the universe.

                The universe is curved?

                It’s a sphere.  It was shaped that way by the force of gravity.

                The universe is a globe?

                That’s one way to look at it.

                How do you use gravity to travel through time?

                Gravity warps the fabric of space/time.  So, a time vehicle travels by tuning into the gravitational waves of the universe and then amplifies them.  This creates a high gravitational field centered on the vehicle.  Then you pick an arc of the already established space/time continuum and you can travel to a different place and arrive in a different time.

                Sounds interesting.  Harnessing gravity instead of fighting it isn’t something I had ever considered before.

                What is it that you do consider?  What do you think about on a day to day basis?

                Shit man, I work seventy hours a week.  I don’t have all that much time to think.  When I’m not at work I have to take care of the wife and kids.  I like to drink a beer and watch ESPN if I can get a chance.  Otherwise I just follow the scores on my phone. 

                Doesn’t that life seem like a flawed system to you?

                Fuck yeah it does, but what else can I do.  I have bills to pay.

                What do you mean by bills?

                You really aren’t from this planet.  I have a mortgage, HOA, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, trash bill, water bill, electric bill, two car payments, I have three kids in school, my own student loans, food, clothes, fuel, cable/internet, cell phone, Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify, Dollar Shave club, gym membership, and the list just keeps going. 

                And you must work to meet these obligations?

                Yes, and even then, just barely.

                How long do you have to work before you have meet all of these obligations?

                Are you fucking kidding?  These go on for the rest of my life. 

                That does not make any sense.  Why burden yourself with so many obligations that you can never fulfill?

                It’s just the way things are.

                Hmm. Are there not enough dwellings available to live in?

                There are plenty if you can afford them.

                Is there not enough water to meet the demand?

                No there’s plenty of water in this area but it cost money?

                Are there not enough sources of power or fuel?

                No there is plenty of fuel and power, you just have to pay for it.

                Is there a scarcity of places to obtain an education?

                No there are public schools, and charter schools, and private schools, and home schooling is an option.

                Is there a shortage of modes of transportation?

                No, you can buy a bike, ride the bus, buy a car, fly in an airplane.

 

                Is there not enough food to feed everyone?

                No there’s plenty of food.  Hell, we waste tons of it every day.

                Is there not enough medicine to treat the sick?

                The only medicine we are short of is the death penalty drug.

                What is that?

                It’s the drugs we use to inject people on death row to end their life.

                Is that considered a medical treatment?

                Ha, no it’s considered justice.

                How is it considered just?

                Because they did bad things, unless they were innocent, which happens occasionally, and they deserve to die.

                Everyone dies.  How can it be considered just to do something that is going to happen anyway?

                Well, they usually killed people, and murder is wrong so their punishment is to be killed.

                What’s the difference between killing them and murder?

                A bunch of paperwork.

                I do not follow.

                There’s legal system and a bunch of paperwork and a trial, so it’s not the same as murdering someone.

                You said that sometimes innocent people are executed.  Is that considered murder?

                It should be but it isn’t.  We all know the system is going to make some mistakes. 

                So, if the system makes mistakes it goes on unchanged, but if people make mistakes they are punished. 

                If they don’t have enough money to hire a crafty lawyer.

                So, some people who kill are not punished?

                Yeah that happens.  OJ is a good example.

                What is an OJ?

                He’s guy who was a football star and then an actor.  He murdered his wife and her lover and he was found not guilty. 

                So, your legal system kills innocent people and lets the guilty go free.

                It happens.

                That does not sound like a good system.

                What kind of system would you have then?

                If killing people is wrong than a system that doesn’t kill people.

                Then they just stay in prison for the rest of their lives.  That doesn’t seem like justice for the people that they killed.

                If you kill them do the people they killed come back to life?

                No.

                Then I do not see the justice in killing them.  What is a prison?

                It’s where you go if you are sentenced for a crime.  It’s a cage we keep criminals in, kind of like an absurd human zoo.

                How does that help?

                It keeps them away from the rest of society so they can do no more harm.

                They are kept in cages by themselves until they die?

                Well, no they are in there with other criminals.

                Are all of these criminals guilty?

                No, I told you the system sometimes makes mistakes and innocent people get convicted too.

                Can the guilty harm the innocent in these human zoos?

                Yes, prison is a bad place no one goes there on purpose

.

                Once they are there they can no longer contact society?  This is their punishment?

                No, they can have visits and phone calls, and write letters and such.

                So, they are still part of society they just are required to live in a cage?

                Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

                How is this considered justice?  What is the good that comes from this practice?

                It makes the rest of society feel safer.

                Is the rest of society safer?  Has this practice put an end to crime?

                Not by a long shot.  It’s just the way it is.  What would you do with the criminals?

                I would examine the most frequently broken laws to see if those laws were, in fact, just.  If they are found not to be just I would remove them.  Of those who broke the laws that are found to be just I would look to see why that person was broken and work with the rest of the society to restore them to wholeness.

                That sounds like some hippie shit to me.

                I do not know what hippie shit is?  It is a system that works for the betterment of all.  It has worked for millennium on my home planet.

                A planet without prisons and cops.  I would like to go there.

                You do not have to go there.  You could help make the same system here.  It seems to me that origins of the collapse of human civilization on this planet are obvious.  More so than I ever suspected they would be.

                What origins of collapse are you talking about?  Nuclear weapons, global warming, World War III. 

                All of those are the logical conclusion of this system.  So, they are symptoms not the cause.  The causes are obvious.  You have more than enough food but people go hungry.  You have more than enough dwellings but people are denied them.  You have the technology to promote life and wellness but you restrict access to it.  Your laws are unjust and therefore must be enforced with the club and the gun.  You believe that justice is the practice of capturing, caging and killing people.  This is not a sustainable system.  It will always collapse.

                What kind of system would you suggest?

                You feed the hungry.  Provide a safe space to live to all persons.  All access to medical technology and treatments for all.  Clothe the naked.  Provide access to transportation to everyone.  Educate all persons.  End unjust laws.  Stop capturing, caging and killing people.  This is the model of every successful civilization in the universe. 

                Where are you supposed to get all the money it would take to do that?

                Why is money important?

                All of the stuff you said we need to do cost money?

                It cost money to end unjust laws?  It cost money not to capture, cage and kill people?

                Those would be the cheapest aspects of your plan.  But where would you get the money for the rest of it?

                It does not take money.  It takes cooperation.

 

                I promise you it would take a great deal of money to get the people who own the food, the hospitals, and the houses to cooperate with a plan of providing it to those who cannot pay. 

                Who owns all these things?

                Mostly a bunch of different corporations.

                Corporations are a cooperative, correct?

                In a manner of speaking.

                Then why would they not provide these things?

                Because there would be no money in it.  They would all lose their ass and go out of business.

                Why would they go out of business?

                Because they wouldn’t collect any money and there would be no profit so they would run out of money and have to shut down.

                Why do they need money to provide these basic things?

                So, they can pay the people doing the work and pay for the goods.  If they didn’t, people wouldn’t do the work or provide the goods.

                Why would the people need this money?

                So, they can buy things.

                What would they need to buy?  They would be provided with food, medical care, housing, clothing and transportation.   

                What if they wanted cell phones?

                Then there could be a cooperation that provides cell phones and operates a cell phone network.

                Why would people do that if there was no money in it.

                Because there is a desire for it and it helps the people of the planet.

                It wouldn’t happen without the profit motive.  People are motivated by the opportunity to make money.

                Then the people need to be reeducated.  Do you think that your form of currency will be accepted on any other planet in the universe?

                I hadn’t thought of that, but no probably not.

                I assure you it won’t.  Any other civilization in the universe who has the technological ability to reach you would easily replicate your currency and take command of your digital networks as soon as they realized how easily you are plied with it.  A realization they would come to with a quickness you cannot comprehend.  A planet wide system of cooperation that works for the betterment of civilization, however, is much harder to, if not impossible to overcome. 

                Is that what you plan to do?  You came here from both a distant planet and another time so you must have that technology.

                No, I have no interest in that.  I’m only here for research.  Your civilization collapses and those voyagers you are able to send out before the collapse must seek assistance from those they come in contact with and therefore already know the wisdom of cooperation. 

                Why don’t you provide us with some future technology to prevent the collapse?

What you need to prevent the collapse is already here. The change must come from you.

                Don’t you have some future time travel technology that could save us.

                No visiting intelligent life form with ever provide you with more advanced technology than you can develop on your own.  This planet’s first priority would be to weaponize any new technology that they receive and this would have ramifications, not just for this planet, but the whole universe. 

                Is there anything you can do to save us?

                Your salvation comes from an accurate assessment of your problems and the cooperation that is required to implement the necessary solutions.  It will never come from an outside source.

                So, we are fucked.

                If you choose to be.  I have appreciated our conversation it has provided me insight that will be helpful in completing my research.

                Are you taking off?  Do you have an appointment that you are afraid you will be late for?  Sorry, time travel joke.

                No need to apologize for having a sense of humor.  It is one of the finest qualities of any intelligent mind.

                As he got up and left my table I took a sip of my now watered-down coffee.  Intelligent mind huh?  I wonder where I’m going to find one of those.   

Buyer’s remorse gets Trumped

Every time that Trump does something stupid and disastrous that will have lasting effects on both our national and foreign policy and disgraces the office of the President, so about seven times a day.  I see yet another article by some news outlet pondering the question of whether or not the Trump voter will now finally regret their decision to have voted for him.  The answer is and always will be no. 

                This question is analogous to asking if a habitual lottery ticket purchaser regrets the money they have wasted each time they don’t win the jackpot.  You can sit down every day with this person and go over the numbers.  You can show them that their odds of winning are miniscule.  You can show them how much money they could save every year and every decade if they just chose not to spending it on the lottery.  This will have no effect on their mindset or their behavior.  Someone who buys five dollars’ worth of lottery tickets twice a week will continue to do so in spite of your best logical arguments.  The fact that you have worked out the numbers and can show them the facts of these numbers will make no difference. 

                This is because playing the lottery fulfills one of the basest human needs that there is, it provides a sense of hope that allows the purchaser to continue to dream impossible dreams.  They say that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.  If this is true, then in the waiting room of the first brothel someone started a numbers racket and everyone present bought a ticket.  This racket has been alive and well ever since and it isn’t going to end. 

You may be asking me what sense of hope Trump inspired that would have caused someone to cast their vote for him?  The answer is simple.  He said he would make America great, again.  I know that great is an ambiguous and manipulatable term just like patriotism, which can mean completely different things to each person, but this doesn’t change the fact that he hit a nerve.

 

                The people that felt America was no longer great don’t have to be completely bigoted, racist, misogynistic, homophobic pricks.  They just have to live with an underlying and daily sense of dread, real or imagined.  Though I will concede that a false sense of dread not tied to reality is much harder to overcome then one based on actual threats.  The majority of those who feel this sense of dread are not ignorant, openly racist rednecks.  They are the pseudo-educated, who hold certificates of education whose main purpose is the constant reminder of the debt burden they accumulated for such a privilege.  They are those that just signed for a loan on an overpriced house on the “right” side of the tracks.  Those who make $75,00 to $150,000 a year and still live paycheck to paycheck.  Those who do whatever it takes to get their children into charter schools and still feel that their kids won’t have it as good as they did.  Those who distrust and dislike law enforcement but still put blue lights out on their porch in solidarity because they believe that the alternative to militaristic law enforcement is to be overrun by those who are worse off than they are. 

                These people believe that the “system,” however they define it, is and has for a long time been rigged.  The reality of the situation is that they are right, for all the wrong reasons, and the reasons fucking matter.  Trump played to these fears and promised to be something different.  This is what jumpstarted his campaign for President.  He was able to win because he was the perfect storm of the American illusion.  Trump is the icon of modern extravagant wealth.  He’s a thin-skinned braggart that believes his wealth is the source of meaning and purpose in life.  He openly states that this wealth is a sign of his betterness and that he is therefore entitled to act as he pleases in all situations without fear of consequence or retribution.  Something he believes he is entitled to dole out to others on a daily basis. 

                This sales pitch is not new.  It has been the mantra of monarchs and depots throughout long course of human civilizations.  If you want a biblical reference for the same type of herd behavior look no further than the people of Israel beseeching God to provide them a king.  They perceived that they were surrounded by overwhelming threats both foreign and internal.  They willing gave their functioning form of tribal democracy for the presence of a strong leader.  In spite of the warnings by their own prophets of what type of destruction such a leader always does to their own people.  If you want to know the aftermath of this horrible decision read Kings and Chronicles. 

                Many of the people in the United States today feel those same pressures the tribes of Israel felt, and have turned to the same solution.  It is my opinion that much of this fear is real even if it is grossly misplaced.  The constant cycle of endless consumerism driven debt coupled with a digital permanent record of all financial and personal failings that can and do occur over a lifespan of seventy plus years.  Removes a sense of wellbeing from most individuals that is impossible to get back.  In a vain and misguided attempt to do so we elected a blowhard charlatan who promised greatness with even not knowing what the term meant. 

                I believe Trump as President will cause much great and irreversible damage to the once sovereign country of the United States.  He already has with his actions in the realm of foreign affairs.  This so-called, travel ban, just being the latest blow. 

                Our Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  Yet, we as a people have forgotten that those masses are not supposed to remain forever tired, poor and wretched. 

                As the wealth gaps grows daily by leaps and bounds, between the wealthiest few and the rest of us.  The gap between those who are just getting by and those who aren’t closes just as rapidly.  This is the real terror that we should be waging a war on.  Yet we are giving up our freedoms that allowed for us to prosper together. In exchange for a false sense of security, which we will find out to late, is going to be our undoing. 

                The Trump voter can see all this happening but they will still never regret their choice in the ballot box.  This is because, just as the lottery player, they never truly expected to win.  They voted on the outside chance that something other than their worst fears would become reality.  When those fears and more, do become reality, which they will, those who voted for and still support Trump will recite the same tired excuses they were taught in place of an actual education.  It would have been worse if we elected the other one.  

Hippocratic Oath vs Capitalism

The Hippocratic Oath taken by medical professionals and capitalism mutually exclusive.  Once you introduce the idea of health care being a profitable business you remove the health and the only thing anyone cares about is making money.  To see how this violates the Hippocratic Oath on several levels lets first review the modern Hippocratic Oath.

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

To see how every part of this covenant is incompatible with the profit motive we will take it one part at a time.  First, I will respect the hard-won scientific knowledge of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.  Profit motive is incompatible with the concept of sharing.  Therefore, everything from medicine to vaccines to genes are being patented.  Those who hold the patent will not share their knowledge they will only sell it to the highest bidder.  Who in turn will pass this cost on to those in need of treatment.  If you cannot pay you do not receive treatment which directly violates other parts of the covenant we will discuss later.  The reason that sharing is part of the covenant is because it is this sharing that allows health care to progress in ways that provide a healthier and more stable society.  If you take out the sharing part and replace it with the profit motive then health care moves only in directions that can be capitalized for profit and not in the best interest of the patient receiving care or society. 

This brings us to the second part: I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.  The first thing that the profit motive is in direct conflict with is, “for the benefit of the sick.”  In a for-profit health care system, this becomes for the benefit of the owners of the hospitals, treatment centers, pharmaceutical companies, patent holders, and shareholders.  This then changes all measures that which are required to, only the measures which the patient or the patient’s insurance will pay for.  Medical care in a for-profit environment does not avoid the twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism, it exacerbates them.  The more you proscribe the more money you make.  This is evident in the pill epidemic in this country.  As for therapeutic nihilism, this is forced to be a medical professional’s fallback position when a patient doesn’t or runs out of money.  They say, “There is nothing more we can do.  All the other treatments that are available are expensive.”  Which again violates the entire second part of the covenant.

This brings us to the third part: I will remember that there is an art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist drug.  Nothing erodes sympathy and understanding faster or more completely that a focus on the bottom line of turning a profit.  This is why CEO is such a psychopath laden position.  Medical professionals are put in a no win scenario when they are trying to be sympathetic while saying “I’m sorry but your insurance doesn’t cover that.”

The fourth part states: I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.  Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.  If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks.  But it may also be within my power to take a life: this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.  Above all, I must not play God.  This part of the oath is about trust between a medical professional and their patient.  This trust has been compromised as the public comes to see medical professionals as salesmen.  This has given rise to such theories as undisclosed cures for illnesses that require long term treatment and are often fatal.  This belief only has a foothold if the patient feels that the medical professional must consider profitability when considering how to treat an illness. 

The fifth part states: I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability.  My responsibility includes those related problems, if I am to adequately care for the sick.  If viewing a patient only through the prism of their medical chart can reduce the medical professional’s empathy towards them as another human being, then worrying about turning a profit will do this tenfold.  If instead of worrying about the affect an illness will have on a patient’s economic stability the medical professional must consider their ability to pay then they are unable to adequately care for the sick.  This is because not all the options for treatment will be viable, only the ones that the patient can afford.

The six part strikes directly to the heart of this matter when it states: I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.  While someone cannot be turned away from an emergency room with a life-threatening illness, they are consistently turned denied preventive medical treatment due to inability to pay.  This is the most common and obvious violation of the Hippocratic Oath in service of the profit motive.

The seventh part of the oath states: I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those of sound mind and body as well as the infirm.  The profit motive trumps any obligation to other human beings, special or otherwise, as shown above.

The final part of the oath states: If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.  May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.  This part of the oath is violated in its entirety due to the violation brought on my subservience to the profit motive as stated in the first seven parts. 

All of this is to say that introducing the capitalistic concept of running health care is mutually exclusive from adhering to the oath which is the foundation of the profession.  I do believe that medical professionals should be paid well for the service they are task with providing.  What needs to be completely removed from the health care system is all the leeches attached to it.  These include, but are not limited to the pharmaceutical companies, the private hospitals, and the insurance companies.  These entities are making a killing by killing off the health of a nation by focusing entirely on the health of their own bottom line.      

The bludgeon of personal responsibility

               For two and a half years I was forced by the state that I live in to participate in mandatory alcohol counseling once a week.  At the end of this expensive and monotonous journey I was required to answer the question of what I had learned through forced therapy.  I answered truthfully, as follows:

• ·         All the circumstances in your life are your responsibility. 
• ·         All systems of authority and authority figures are legitimate.
• ·         It is your responsibility to endure any mistakes made by authority figures or systems of authority.  The reasoning being that if your choices had not brought you in contact with the system you wouldn’t be as subject to its mistakes.  Therefore, the mistakes of the system are your fault.    
• ·         You have no recourse against authority so you must except it.  Not accepting it is a choice you make and therefore the punishments you must endure for not accepting the systems rules are your responsibility.
• ·         All systems of authority are in place to benefit all of society and that is what they do.  Not accepting this as a fact is just another way of dodging personal responsibility.
• ·         Punishments imposed by authority/system must be viewed as for your and society’s benefit.
• ·         Punishments can only be avoided if you are wealthy, famous or both.  If you point this out you are avoiding personal responsibility.
• ·         If you are identified as avoiding personal responsibility you will be punished further. 
• ·         You are only being personally responsible if you acknowledge that all the circumstance in your life are your responsibility.
• ·         This continuously circular logic was put in place to help you take personal responsibility.

My answer was not well received and if I had not served the maximum amount of time in forced therapy I would have been required to continue with said therapy.  The maximum amount of time in forced therapy is set by a dollar amount.  The law states that the for-profit therapy centers that provide this “service” in place of the government agencies can only make you pay up to a certain dollar amount.  It is completely coincidental, I was informed, that my reaching this dollar amount coincided with my completion of treatment. 

This idea of so-called personal responsibility has long been the mantra of the oppressive.  It is as oxymoronic as any mantra found in Orwell’s 1984.  The underlying philosophical assumption is this, your failure to submit to authority is completely responsible for all your failures or shortcomings, if you submit completely to authority by taking personal responsibility you will succeed in all your endeavors, if you fail just remember, your failure to submit to authority is completely responsible for all your failures and shortcomings. 

This is a brilliant tactic employed by those in power to remain in power because it absolves them of any responsibility whatsoever.  It has been employed most successfully by organized religion.  It should come as no surprise that this perverted system is at the foundation of state mandated treatment programs since all of them are just Alcoholics Anonymous lite.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a Christian religious organization that just took the Christian logo, i.e., the cross, off the cover of the organization.  While still adhering to most fundamental dogma of religious institutions.  We can play a little game to show this is easily applied in the context of religious dogma.

·         All the circumstances in your life are your responsibility. 

o   You were born with free will so everything you do is your choice.  Extenuating circumstance, such as you not choosing to be born, be damned.

·         All systems of authority and authority figures are legitimate.

o   God is all powerful and all-knowing and infallible.  Just like any Republican candidate.

o   Anyone who is in a position of authority was chosen by God and God knows best.

·         It is your responsibility to endure any mistakes made by authority figures or systems of authority.  The reasoning being that if your choices had not brought you in contact with the system you wouldn’t be as subject to its mistakes.  Therefore, the mistakes of the system are your fault.   

o   The flaws in creation are only flaws because you are not doing what God wants. 

·         You have no recourse against authority so you must except it.  Not accepting it is a choice you make and therefore the punishments you must endure for not accepting the systems rules are your responsibility.

o   God is God and you’re not so quit your bitching and die painfully as is his great plan which you just are too stupid or wrongheaded to understand.

·         All systems of authority are in place to benefit all of society and that is what they do.  Not accepting this as a fact is just another way of dodging personal responsibility.

o   God is doing all of this for your own good.  God would be completely fine if you never existed but he took it upon himself to allow you to exist.  So, no matter how ridiculous that existence is shut the fuck up and endure it, because it is for the best in some to-be-determined long run.

·         Punishments imposed by authority/system must be viewed as for your and society’s benefit.

o   God has everyone’s best interest at heart, even terrorist, because he loves us all so much.  So, if your life sucks it’s because God wants you to learn some shit and change your ways.

·         Punishments can only be avoided if you are wealthy, famous or both.  If you point this out you are avoiding personal responsibility.

o   God has his favorites.  They know who they are and you’re not it.

·         If you are identified as avoiding personal responsibility you will be punished further.

o   If you continue to not accept that all things that happen are God’s good will then you will be forced by God to endure more bad shit.  The choice is of course up to you except that God is in complete control.

·         You are only being personally responsible if you acknowledge that all the circumstance in your life are your responsibility.

o   Once you accept that you are the cause of all things bad and God must punish you for this, because really, what else does he have to do, then you will be able to better endure your lashes. By the grace of God, of course.  This continuously circular logic was put in place to help you take personal responsibility.  Thank God, it’s required!

This idea of using the concept of personal responsibility as a state sanctioned self-flagellation device to keep the public in line is not limited to mandated so-called treatment programs.  It is most notably used in the political arena whenever a politician or political group is advocating for removing access to goods/services from the public and turning them over to the corporate for-profit sector. 

The personal responsibility mantra of these politicians is condensed for repeated commercial consumption and it sounds like this: “If you can’t afford said goods or services that’s your fault.  Americans (insert flag waving background here) have a responsibility to turn a profit at all costs and if you can’t live with that then just go fucking die already.”  The true root of this mentality isn’t even about monetary profit/the economy.  It’s about power.  Restricting access to health care, education, information, food, water, and living facilities are all effective ways for those who have the power to remain in power while restricting access to power from everyone else.  If they can get you to spend your whole life in constant terror of losing what little you think you have then you will never organize so that everyone can have more.    

It’s funny to me how they continue to pull this trick off.  They use anecdotes about this individual or that individual who at one time, supposedly, ripped off a system in which all people had access to necessary goods and services.  They then say that no one can have access if they don’t pay or everyone rips off the system and it collapses.  I say if the system is that easy to collapse then it is a flawed system and should be replaced.  The other side of the same coin.  They parade around a lifestyle of the rich and powerful and tell you that if you are careful not to upset the system you could one day be one of those people.  That is complete bullshit, yet they again use a narrative that all of those who have money and power now, at one time didn’t, so that means you have a chance of getting it too.  Just don’t rock the boat.  Take personal responsibility for not having money and power and someday you just might.  That is complete bullshit.

This truth this they shouldn’t have such concentrated access to that much wealth or power.  No one should.  It should be in the hands of the people, with many checks and balances in place to assure that it does not fall into the hands of the few.  The truth is that systems that concentrate wealth and power also collapse.  They always have, always will.  The problem being that when that system collapses it comes at the cost of the lives and welfare of millions. 

The few Haves know that if even a third of the Have-Nots would organize together their power would wane until it was inconsequential.  To smash such efforts of organization the Haves use the bludgeon of personal responsibility.  Personal responsibility is a fucking myth.  We didn’t get here of our own devices and we don’t exist or flourish on our own.  The closest example modern society has to the effects of real personal responsibility is solitary confinement.  Anyone who has seen solitary confinement, as I have, or experienced it, know that it not only destroys the physical body but also the soul and mind of anyone subjected to it. 

Humans were not made to exist or thrive on their own.  No matter what fairy tales you believe, even Adam was going crazy in the paradise of the Garden of Eden until he was given some human company. 

Do we make mistakes? Yes, of course we do, but we don’t make them as isolated individuals devoid of context or extenuating circumstances.  We make them together and as a result the solutions do not come from us just accepting personal responsibility.  The solutions are rooted in the group effort that occurs when we realize that we do not exist and cannot exist or act alone.  When come together all the problems of life will not go away but we will find that they are not compounded the way they currently are with this personal responsibility bludgeon. 

So, my “therapist” asked if I was not forced by the state to take “personal responsibility” for my so-called alcohol addition/problem, which in America is defined by Prohibition era standards of abstinence only, how would I have gotten “help?”  I responded that there are several other ways to deal with this, and many other issues, that are empathy building as opposed to isolation intensifying.  Examples include models such as Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs in which, instead of being forced once a week to watch bad propaganda videos from the 1980’s with a bunch of strangers who I never see again while drinking reheated bad coffee, I would actually sit down with the members of my community who I interact with and discuss with them the effects my drinking has on their and my life from their prospective.  I could also share my thoughts and feelings with them.  This is much more effective because I see and interact with these people daily and will continue to do so. 

This type of program increases empathy and tends to move away from extremely harsh and Kafkaesque punishments and penalties.  It also increases the accountability for all parties who are effected.

The “therapist” wanted to know if this is so effective why isn’t it being implemented?  That was the easiest question to answer.  Because this sort of a program is not conducive to turning a profit.  It requires all the participants to be volunteers and the mediator is paid for by the state. 

The bludgeon of personal responsibility, however, is extremely easy to leverage for a profit.  The individual is forced by the state to accept the state’s definition of rehabilitation and then must do so on the state’s terms.  Which are paying fines, paying for “treatment”, paying for classes, paying for the “opportunity” to do community service, paying for sobriety monitoring, paying for assessments, etc.  These services have been lobbied for at the local and national level by companies that then step in to provide the “service” in place of the state.  These corporations are then invested in keeping individuals in the system for their profit, which they hide under the guise of “safety of the community.”

               Let me ask you this, does anyone really believe that any community becomes safer as more and more of its individuals feel more internally focused, isolated, stressed, and trapped?  The answer is no.  But it does turn a profit!  So all you have-Lesses keep swinging that bludgeon of personal responsibility into your own skull and do as you’re told, because that’s your responsibility!