James Crystal |
Saturday, January 22, 2005
I'm so jealous! On January 20th, Thomas Sowell wrote something that I've been thinking for a while, that transcends all the detailed money and political stuff---read this and make it your own: "If we are serious, we can compare one alternative to another, instead of comparing one alternative to perfection. What is different with the private retirement accounts that the President is proposing, compared to the Social Security system as it exists now? The biggest difference seems to get the least attention: With private accounts, money is invested in the economy, creating additional wealth, from which pensions can be paid. With Social Security, the money is spent as soon as it gets to Washington. Is it better to invest for the future or to keep spending the Social Security taxes now and leave it to someone in the future to figure out what to do when today's young workers retire and there is not enough money to pay them what they were promised?" There it is. Maybe we should nail liberals by constantly reminding people that their very essence in to be LIBERAL with other people's money. And that they are the 'grasshopper' (is that who it was?) who plays all summer, consuming away, and Bush is the 'squirrel', most busy investing time and energy saving as many 'nuts' as possible for the future. Yes, it's a simple and clear split: SPEND, now, or INVEST for the future. The only question wrt changing Social Security must be about that---SPEND or INVEST?
Friday, January 21, 2005
Here's my comment to Kudlow, regarding his (minor) criticism of Bush's speech, because it hardly mentioned domestic policies, especially economics. Allow me, as one of your most ardent followers, for a long time, to say that I think you should relax. Yes, your bag is economics, and so you probably had to notice the paucity of paragraphs in Bush's speech about that subject. Keep in mind that there are always opportunity costs, and BENEFITS. I believe that the overwhelming power of TRUTH in Sharansky's book has been so digested by W that it's sort of a secular rebirth, like what happened to him wrt his conversion to Christ. My guess is that he had to be more focused on FREEDOM in terms of foreign policy, in order NOT to try to say too much, a la Bill Clinton. I'll bet his State of the Union speech will make you very happy, when he lays down some markers, wrt domestic policy, that will outrage the liberals as much as the speech yesterday. The phrase "You ain't seen nothing, yet" comes to mind. It's my opinion that Bush, himself fired up by Sharansky's "Been there (the gulag), done that" book, knows, in his bones, as I do, that the do-or-die priority is to duplicate what America accomplished in Afghanistan, and will bring about in Iraq, starting with the worst cases that are doable, next. Why? Because, if he does not follow that strategy, with eternal commitment, as far as time can go, America---and her economic reality---can be hurt, maybe beyond the point of repair.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
A few late night thoughts about the FREEDOM TRAIN speech by Bush---I screwed up by not checking out the TV schedule. The History Channel has been doing two hours from 8-10 P.M., Monday through Friday, this week, 'doing' the presidents, one by one. I chanced to notice this Tuesday at 9, and was instantly hooked. A perfect show for this week, capped by the very historical speech by W, today. I got into the story a few decades before the Civil War, and backed by many hours of previous absorption of other American history programs, and a lot of reading, now that I've had some time to also take in Bush's speech, a simple, yet mind blowing comparison came to mind. The imperfect Constitution which allowed slavery---had to, or else there would have been NO constitution, given the Zeitgeist of those days---had to do, until things reached a boiling point, and a war had to be fought. It may be high time to repeat one of my old beliefs. The United States of America isn't a PLACE, a piece of bounded land. It isn't even the current people living on that land, at least not in essence. The USA is an IDEA. The thought that individuals should be free---all humans are endowed by their Creator, etc, etc. Therefore, what GWB just did was acknowledge the hard-to-take (for some) truth that the Declaration of (American) Independence was verily meant to apply to each human on EARTH---fuggedabout arbitrary LINES drawn on the ground, such as those that even now 'define' Iraq! Granted, the fact is that it will have to take many years and much hard fighting and dying, but look back from, what---the year 2100 will do. Given all the massive changes that took place in the twentieth century, despite the horrible deeds done by mankind to 'others', why couldn't a relatively peaceful 100 years, that saw tyrannies falling like dominoes, NOT bring about the export of 'America' everywhere? Maybe the 'end of history' is supposed to indicate that outcome. At any rate, awakened civilized humans did finally free their slaves. Maybe this is the perfect point. Those people in Red China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, et al, are, right now, SLAVES! The beautiful paradox, expressed by Bush, is that America has been pushed into a corner from which there is no escape. Good old isolationist America, in order to survive, herself, MUST get out of 'Dodge' and 'invade' the worst of the worst places, and pick them off, one by one. Talk about umbrellas under penumbras in the Constitution, such as what brought us Roe v Wade! The FIRST duty of a President is to defend America! Therefore, because of the opening of Pandora's Box, the attack of 9-11, Bush MUST FREE all SLAVES! Not to do so, under today's dire conditions, is an impeachable OFFENSE of omission! Let Iraq be the first that's acknowledged to be in that category. Of course, the litany of places and peoples freed by America is long, but under the rubric of good manners, and taste, due to BAD human nature, after each one of those liberations (see France, a couple of times), America comes home, and the freed people eventually resent us. You could say that for Bush, under the sway of Sharansky---and Norman Podhoretz's brilliant WW IV writings---the time has come for NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! How sweet it is---in order to be effective in bringing the ultimate NICENESS, FREEDOM, he has to become a BAD ASS for the true BAD ASSES---see Iran.
On this most special day for America, and therefore, all of mankind, as Bush, officially and efficiently, shows the world how FREEDOM is done---he's the latest unlikely looking emanation of the best of the best, at this, just as Michael Jordan was, in his time---the whole stretch of the political spectrum flashed before my eyes, but most importantly, three or four of the particular 'notes' or 'colors' were plucked, simultaneously, leading me to convey the following. Take as givens FREEDOM = Individual Liberty; Democratic or Republican or Libertarian government. And, of course, don't forget all the UN-FREEDOM = Enslaved Individual types of government, from Authoritarian to Totalitarian governments. We all know there are many, way too many, specific instances where GWB promulgated actions that grow big government, and did nothing to stop other actions of a similar nature, by never using his veto pen. I got a mindful of an acute criticism, yesterday, by reading Lew Rockwell. It was good to have a Libertarian flavored look at all things considered George W. Bush. Jonah Goldberg delves into some of the distinctions between a democracy and a republic. We need to keep this in mind, also, so we don't naively support ONLY democracy. Then, today, as I saved everything from Nationalreview.com, the title of a long piece by Michael Novak, Democracy is the new name for peace, was the clincher, leading to this blog. (I haven't had time to read Novak, yet) Here's the idea. Since the metaphysical and spiritual TRUTH has to be that every singe separate human individual is----ta ta ta TA TA TA!: an INDIVIDUAL, from the very instant of birth (I claim from the instant when the egg and sperm merge), whatever the heaven/hell that individual IS, he/she is ultimately and always absolutely responsible for his/her unfolding reality. This is so, no matter what the prevailing 'wind' is, politically, or how this 'wind' either winds up into more slavery, or winds down into more freedom. So, let's look at the present political state, and how it is proceeding (which way the 'wind' IS blowing), and how it is processing all the arising fruits of human consciousness, all the new offerings, the noospheric IPO's, shall we say? The first constant truth is that, paradoxically, even as 'what is, IS what is', hums as the 'grace NOTE', the 'eye of the hurricane' of BEING---hey, what else could BEING be, except BE itself!---, every instant of BEING is at once merely a stage on the way to a new appearance. Let's use this prong, the BECOMING "ONE", to play with the four givens, FREEDOM = Individual Liberty; Democratic or Republican or Libertarian government. Using the eloquent epiphany about FREEDOM spoken by Bush, today, as our jumping off point, here's the hearing BIG DEAL--- presently, the political presentation for humanity is very far from the ultimate ideal goal, maximum responsible personal freedom. Even in the most-free country, America, it is on the way out of the wilderness of too much government, aiming for a more Libertarian future. Concomitantly, the other countries on Earth run the gamut across the political spectrum. Therefore, what Bush is tapping into is the burning desire, which is the heart, the soul and the fire-in-the-belly, of each current blessed human. Think of the political spectrum like a speedometer, with the zero = slavery, and the maximum physical 'speed' = freedom. By going for the good, not the enemy of the good, the best, and by taking that clichéd half loaf of freedom, Bush is showing great wisdom. It would be impossible to go from HERE to the BEST political state, so GWB is pushing the 'moderate' 'speed', which is called DEMOCRACY. My key point is that DEMOCRACY is the middle path, and it still contains a lot of hindering 'clothes', or crutches, in order to bridge the too-huge gap between a more ideal Republican form of government and what now passes for government. As I wrote the other day, America, herself, is far from living up to her founding ideals, so the political elites who get this have a huge amount of work to do, domestically, to un-wind the socialistic binds previous fools created---FDR, etc. America is at once the PHYSICIAN of the world, and the PATIENT. And, HEALING THYSELF is the call to arms, the dominant mantra, the tonic chord. As Heidegger once put it, today's political BRIDGE can be thus described--- "Now in a high arch, now in a low, the BRIDGE vaults over glen and stream---whether mortals keep in mind this vaulting of the BRIDGE'S course or forget that they, always themselves on the way to the LAST BRIDGE, are actually striving to surmount all that is common and unsound in them, in order to bring themselves before the haleness of the divinities. The BRIDGE GATHERS, as a passage that crosses, before the divinities---whether we explicitly think of, and visibly GIVE THANKS FOR, their presence, as in the figure of the saint of the BRIDGE, or whether that divine presence is obstructed or even pushed aside." Basic Writings; pages 330-331 Yes, we are each, individually, on our way to the last (and LASTING?) bridge. And, this journey, presently, in terms of the political spectrum, if an open minded ONE takes a long TIME and a MOON view, can bee seen to speeding up toward more and more freedom. Sharansky is right. And Bush is wise to have whole heartedly digested his timeless insights about the power of the yearning for FREEDOM, in each human---even, dare I say it, in many of the dicks who man the armies that currently keep people enslaved. From the Red Chinese army to the British civil servants, there are myriad places to wring freedom out of slavery. A final tiny, but not irrelevant story---in bad old socialistic England, their horrible state-run health system has started privatizing some of their services. A SIGN!
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
There are some more things to say about the relationship so many fooled people have with the Democratic Party. There's no scorned FOOL, like an old scorned FOOL. Continuing the last blog's theme, that tight ties to the donkey tribe are just like the one between males and females, a simple idea arose. The Democratic Party is the ultimate street-legal MOB. Here's a reach---maybe too far: the experiment in the twenties, Prohibition, directly birthed the MOB. People will get their soma! Today, we have the War on Drugs, and as sure as the Earth does its spin job, and the Sun seems to rise, every morning---it's morning on Earth, just arising, at some point, in every instant---what do you know? There are MOBS in EVERY country, and some of them are actually in charge. The putt-putt Putin is standing out in his illegal field. Well, in America, too many people are married to the mob = Democratic Party, whose very essence is SELLING the DRUG---'something for nothing'. Therefore, you could say a lot of them are seeking, or going to seek, UGLY divorces. If you think CW among the reverse chocolate 'blacks', like Jesse Jackson, is blind to humans with melanin in their skin, who proclaim that they are Conservatives, believing they are absolutely Uncle Toms, and scorn them with deadly earnestness, just wait until a lot of them, and whites as well, start leaving the 'marriage'! The MOB, which is truly a heap of excrement, will have plenty of ammo to heap scorn---all over the place. A prediction---you know how unbelievably UGLY, unpatriotic and partisan Democrats have become, skating close to being found out as traitors? Well, it's inevitable that as openness and transparency continue, they will come out of the closet, and we'll look back on these days as tame. Example---Chris Matthews. Also, Lawrence O'Donnell. A recent quote from (God) Dame Hillary about color blindedness, which turned Martin Luther King's 'judge a person by their character, not their skin color' quote on its head, is a great leading indicator of this coming out Democratic Party. The SEEING LIGHT obvious truth is that the donkeys are absolutely BLIND, and I don't mean just their eyeballs. True believers SEE everything through their learned filtering devices, and at the present stage of the evolution of humanity, toward individual freedom, they are, therefore, ABSOLUTELY blind. Here may be a way to understand them---they live in a hall of so many mirrors, that any light gets reflected, and distorted, so many times, that what they end up seeing is their own BELIEFS! Hello Barbara Boxer---she just got through entering the RING of ideas, and punching her own LIGHTS out. That's NO big deal, though, because she can't see what is, any way! Another great piece on Powerline, about the elections in Algeria about ten years ago, and how bad the rebels were making things, then, compares very favorably to what's likely to happen in Iraq in 11 days. Just more on-the-ground true history that freedom, via elections, is the BLINDING LIGHT, and this tells me that the Democratic Party is close to kaput.
The time has come to see how far we can stretch an analogy. The two poles could hardly be further apart, and still remain within the bubble of humanity---from each single, unique human all the way to the entire collective set. Beginning at the beginning, or almost the beginning, whatever your current 'age', find the LEISURE to return to those early adolescent days, when you were full of your oats and everything revolved around sex---just gotta find a mate! This rising 'staff', male or female (distaff?), was the penultimate example of 24/7, before that shorthand phrase was invented. Here we have the pure thrust of each new ONE to find an other ONE with whom to merge. What else more expresses the "I" in action, than this? I call this the most extreme POLE, the one-to-one most personal play of it-all, since it ideally involves the smallest set of humanity---"you and me, babe, against the world!" For most normal humans, despite the acquisition of many other interests, over a hopefully full lifetime, beneath all of them the male-female bonding continues to at least flicker, now and then, as the sine qua non of being alive---at least in THOUGHT. For example, one memory---standing on a corner of Lombard Street, in Portland, Oregon, circa 1965, with my father, when a budding young lady struts her stuff in our view, and he says, "Ah, it isn't fair. So much attractive beauty, when old age makes it less and less possible to bodily enjoy it!", or words to that effect. Yes, seeing is f**king! No matter what else that can be said about this most intimate human physical, and other-than physical, connecting play, I maintain that it is the purest politics, and could be seen as the essence of all other such plays, indeed the seminal seed that gives us the always true, "All politics is LOCAL." Now, extend your mind map from a human's birth until its death, with such relationships between a man and a woman as the metric, over that whole lifetime. (Why am I driven to record what a preacher once said, when addressing a crowd---"Most people could have married most anyone, and still have been as happy as they ended up, after choosing the one who 'turned them on', sexually,"?) At the other 'massive' pole, allow me to introduce the star of this comparison program, the American 'Democratic Party'. There's been a whole lot of ink spilled, ever since the election, about the soul searching (despite the fact it has NO soul) by the elites running that group. For instance, today there was a wonderful piece clipped and posted on Powerline, about "It's the STUPID, stupid", meaning that the elites that control the demos truly think red America is stupid, and the reds get this, in spades. Maybe this was part of the spur that provoked this 'connecting (T)issue'. I guess I have to get personal, which is political, which is local---despite having taken place over forty years ago: putatively. There was this one young lady, Susan, who fit the bill, for me, in 1963, as the ideal mate. She smelled good, kissed great, felt perfect against my body and the mind meld (she was Phi Beta Kappa, a new German and French H.S. teacher, and we soared, after a few beers, trying out our German!) was absolutely the best. Eventually, my karmic circumstances led to a make-or-break climax, and a sorrowful---for me, at that time---split was subconsciously chosen, by yours truly. The anguish was enough to provide enough emotional push to beat Goethe, by writing a 20th century American version of "The Sorrows of Young (James) Werther"! But, here's the kicker that applies to this blog, in a permeating manner. Shortly after the night when I walked out, I couldn't resist seeing her one more time. In the light of that special day, when passion had turned to 'a woman scorned' for her, and almost infinite remorse at my 'stupid' rejection for me, the personal relationship in her kitchen was breathtakingly NORMAL. Despite my self-inflicted broken heart, what got through to me was that the ideal 'Susan' I had been so hot for, was actually a very ordinary human. Deep within, I realized I had been FOOLED! As a final gesture, I asked for one last hug, which she did NOT want to give, but I managed to get one, which was like doing it with my sister. NOW, for the TIE-IN Over a long life, a normal human will be lucky to enjoy the bliss of 'being in blissful love', as I was above, only a few times, and only with a full 'pickle', when young and stiff. AFTER marriage, inevitably demands take the 24/7 marital bliss and turn them into too many tasks---such as raising children. HOWEVER---what about the collective 'LOVE', politics? I venture to say that the relationship that each single person has with the set of all other individuals, is a lot like the male-female personal relationship, especially over time. There are a lot of big differences, though. For the ones with the most ardor, say the top twenty percent of the population, a 24/7 love for politics can GROW, instead of wither, like sexual love. This brings me to my 'bugging' point---for a lot of the individuals who still 'love' the Democratic Party, on the enlightening MARGIN, a lot of 'children' are demanding their time, and so it could well be that there's going to be a surge of divorces. That is, in the growing daylight that is more and more transparency, wrt the MSM and blogging, et al, the scene has to get more and more UGLY, so that quite a few sensitive people will be utterly turned off by the without-a-clue leading remnants of that tattered party. Ugliness is such a beautiful thing to observe in HARD CORE believers, who can NEVER see the beam in their own pie-in-the-sky behavior. The other night The History Channel 're-played' the French Revolution---I only saw the second hour, which was more than enough, thank you very much! Knowing, generally, what happened, was not only not sufficient to edify, but actually dangerous, since it tended to shield me from taking into total account the intimate depravity of it. That is, once again numbers hide the personal tragedies---"800,000 Tutsis were killed in 100 days by Hutus." Each ONE of them was a human! Finishing this RAMBLIN' ROSE, I wonder if the extremists, like Soros, Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, Dean, et al, aren't each incarnations of Robespierre, in our depraved revolutionary times. It could be. After all, the defining essence of the Democratic Party is a secularism absolutely guided by REASON, a reason that completely eschews any religion or spirituality. (Amazing! As I edit this blog, right NOW, Seymour Hersh, the traitor, is on Kudlow and Cramer, being interviewed by Cramer!) And, thus, as the marriage of duped and doped prisoners in the Democratic stockade to such poppycock lives through the disrobing of the Robespierrian un-gentlemen, their jailers, why every day should bring new gifts. Remember, too, that death removes more old Democrats, every day. The REAL 2005 Democratic party slogan---"You sho' is UGLY!"
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
You can count on Tony Blankley to notice the naked truth, as he does in this piece about the traitor Seymor Hersh. Actually, it's those wicked self-centered boobs who passed along the secret information to him who ought to be shot. Then, you can be sure if Richard Holbrooke is happy about the people (ARE policy) picked by Condi, that David Frum was right on target. What we have is SIN, happening, right under our noses. "Sin" comes from the Greek, 'hemartia' (or something like that), which means "to miss the mark". Frum scores a bullseye about all the bought-and-paid-for present day turncoats.
I just read a downer diary entry by David Frum. It got a lot of more realistic, or even negative, thoughts flying around my consciousness. Here's one---in the beginning of WW II, America lost almost every battle with German, for a long time. Against Japan, the Lord was on our side, and provided a 'lucky' devastating, for the Japanese, victory at Midway, which quickened the end for them. But, if you're familiar with a recent book by a history professor, about why and how Hitler could have (and should have, if he'd followed the advice of his generals) at least not lost, and maybe won, WW II, it makes me wonder about the current war against the terrorists. Hubris can be so brutal---I cringe every time I hear people like Larry Kudlow note that America hasn't been attacked since 9-11. I'm afraid Frum's inside insights have got me worried. From the terrorist network's point of view, they are getting their ass kicked, just as the USA did at the start of WW II! Are they about to quit? Can it be a mistake to brag about killing 'two thirds' of the Al Qaeda leaders? Do we REALLY know this? How many of them would it take to bring about an attack in America, or two, or three, that caused serious damage and death? If what Frum said about the depths of the betrayal by members of the CIA, et al, is true, we have a major problem that must get worse. Leviathan may just end up being a division of the terrorist! Maybe it'll take that feared, and always admitted possibility, say a dirty bomb on NYC, to finally shake things up, and get America on a wartime footing. The other bad report by Frum was about Richard Clarke's new book, that predicts the next ten years. When I wrote, earlier today, about the extreme disconnect between the reality in Iraq and the reporting of that by the MSM, I didn't mention the even worse situation inside America. Just imagine! Lenin and Stalin and Mao must be rolling over in their graves! If only they could have help out a little longer? The leftists in America simply needed a little more TIME, in order to become powerful enough to destroy American freedom, from within. Despite the happy truth that Bush and the Republicans have a slight majority, the very fact that about 45% of America is led by such traitors as Kerry, Kennedy and all the other 'lowlifes' leading the Democrats, combined with the misguided a-patriotic fools leaking against Bush, and the 'rent seekers' hired by the Republicans, why man oh man. I'm definitely back in the 'hope for the best, expect the worst' attitude, after some time of too much irrational and optimistic exuberance. People ARE policy, indeed!
It's time to recall those days of yesteryear. Ah, the time just keeps on rolling by, at once throwing NEW stuff UP, pleading for vital attending consideration, and throwing OLD stuff DOWN, which had been of the same nature, but has now been pushed into the subconscious, or even the unconscious, like it never did exist. What is today's OLD hook? The Rush Limbaugh TV show was a glorious nightly event for those people like me, who craved anything to counter the old, stale and moldy 'daily bread' swamping the noosphere from the MSM. One salient concept from that program deserves to be regularly rehabilitated, if not kept in mind, always---the analogy between weather fronts and news 'fronts'. Without naming the MSM as the MSM, Limbaugh had the whole left wing programming machine nailed, back then, with this analogy. The origin of all 'news' fronts were absolutely centered in the usually suspected big cities, and the rest of the country got the 'bad' news, exactly as a storm front crosses the country from west to east. What's the most important upcoming BIG NEWS, for America and the whole world? In twelve days there will be an election in Iraq. If you're appropriately sensitive, if you have enough Roger Kimball leisure time, maybe you can travel back in time to the American Civil War, and not just 'know' in the mind, that the election during that war was probably WORSE than the one coming up in Iraq, in terms of the percentage of votes, but deeply identify with the humans in Iraq, right NOW, as a 'you', as an American, THEN, were [Use your imagination]. What's the big media STORMING downpour, about Iraqi elections? The MSM is playing its (latest)last card, in the hope that they will be a huge failure, and thus keep it, and its lackeys, the Democratic cum socialistic party, in power. Against this unremitting headwind of bad news, the neutral news, let alone any good news, happening there, doesn't stand a chance of entering the majority's consciousness---YET! What's the BIG FEAR? On January 30th, the enemy will cause so much chaos and death at voting places so as to keep people from voting. Don Luskin wrote a great piece today about Bush playing his poker hand well. In regards to this idea, ask yourself what another of the major truths about the war in Iraq is, perhaps the KEY one. Isn't it the case that a war requires fighting between two sides? And, in Iraq, the Islamo-Fascists are rightly afraid to come out and have a fair fight, since they'd be wiped out. Do you know where I'm going? It just could be that the elections will be a big AMBUSH, and like Waterloo, result in the devastating defeat of the 'cockroaches' who will have to come out and fight, at least somewhat, in the open. Of course, given the nature of the dispersed terrorist enemy, it won't end with any single leader, like Napoleon, being defeated, so the whole thing collapses. But, maybe, just maybe, when all the smoke and fire has cleared, after a few days or weeks, we'll be able to look back and compare tis election to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and THIS TIME swamp the retrograde MSM with the on-the-ground measured FACT, that it was a blowout loss for the terrorists. How sweet that would be---Tet, and all that it means, must, someday be told, in truth. Think of the noosphere as a market. With the MSM still in control of the 'market sentiment' weather, the Iraqi election, as well as the war on terrorists, has been extremely oversold. The difference between the truth on the ground in Iraq, and the hurricane-like NEWS-SPINNING by the MSM about this truth, could hardly be more EXTREME. So, many Americans, not to mention non-Americans, are so mis-informed, or at least un-informed, that I must conclude that the time and place, Iraq on January 30th, closely resembles the stock market in spring 2000, upside down. In short, those who have bought the MSM doom and gloom weather, are SHORT in their noospheric take, and when February gushes up, there's likely to be a short squeeze that'll make the left wingers pull out their pubic hairs! There's another concept to apply to the noosphere, particularly to the upcoming Big Bang opportunity for Iraqis to vote. There is always a LEARNING CURVE, which never stops. So, just like humans must learn to live according to the seasons, which essentially means adapting to the WEATHER, especially its annual regularity, they will adapt---and ARE adapting--- to all that hits their consciousness, as 'news'. As we live, and some die, the war between BLOGGERS and the MSM can only become more brutal, until enough adaptation by enough awake people has happened, and the MSM will become today's example of Marxist relics.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Sometimes it's just pure physics. No, I'm not referring to a MIND gaming theoretical deal, as enjoyable as that is. I mean to get very gross, and relate a happy new habit that snuck up on me---consider it a unique New Year's resolution. Instead of fasting, as I usually do the first part of January, I decided to try to focus more on fresh fruit and vegetables. With my eyes wide open, then, my food store conspired to make me happy by offering cucumbers for a mere 16 cents each. Let me tell you my cuke story. Over the recent years, the mind continued to nag, always yelling in my ear, like an old mother hen, "You should eat more fresh vegetables, more salad!" Well, we all know what a pain in the TIME-TAKING ass it is to make a salad! I, like all well-programmed Americans, have always been prone to go for instant foods, or at least 'heavy' kinds, which make fill me up. A favorite is tofu. Like last night, about four to six meals a month consist of fried onion, with half a pound of tofu stirred in, when it's cooked. Lots of brewers yeast and tamari, along with the canola oil it was cooked in, never fails to make me like Linus's dog, after his 'happy' meal---and, it always keeps me full, for hours on end. For years, my memory of cukes was that they left a bad gaseous taste in my mouth, and the last time I tried to eat them, I left them in the reefer so long they spoiled, and became moldy! So, imagine my surprise when I made a salad with half a cuke, a week ago or so, when it MADE the meal! The grossest happiness came out one morning with a BM like a baby! Nuff said. That inspired me to start making a salad the main meal for 'dinner', to eat from around 5 until 6 o'clock. That's what I meant by physics---the sheer rough and fresh water logged veggies enjoyably chewed slowly, at night, result in a wonderful elimination the next morning. As we weather the debate about social security, and all investing for the future, it hit me that my 24-hour regimen is a perfect investment, with absolute implications for the long term. I feel like Pavlov's dog, with a salad as the bell ringer that makes my body 'salivate'--- the good, conscious habit grows on itself! Isn't life strange? When a growing kid, I hated salads. Now, as a groaning sixty-something man, I love them! From hating avocadoes and cukes to tasty loving them! I can have my salad and eat it too!
In a few good men-days, the American law-making sausage machine powers up, and with a fresh term comes an attempt by the chief chef, George W. Bush, to radically change the recipe for the tired, old and un-true bologna known as 'social security'. Oh, lordy, how many words have been spat out about that, over the past few decades? Why, if truth be told to power, absolutely, with full impudent alacrity, about the only honest thing that could be said, with full understanding, is that everything about it is identical to CONFUSION---the Devil grows in his ability to stick us with his trident, and Shiva keeps on figuring out new ways to shove deadly crap into our life: all to sooner kill us. I just started the week reading the good old reliable 55 Chevy, Fred 'Bad News' Barnes, as he tried to be as objective as he could in predicting what was likely to come out of the D.C. law factory, given all that's happened, lately, wrt social security. This is on top of many educational forays into the lucent exegesis's by the ever-bright and ready Don Luskin, which go into dollar and time detail to mind us of the real story. It seems apparent to me, on deep reflection, that the key word for this mammoth undertaking is CRISIS. Underlying all the lying by all the professional liars, which composes our cacophony of phony cackling pretty boy politicians in Washington, D.C., is a transcendental noospheric truth, which is so for any one of the many different flavored 'sausages' they produce---there are two very distinct dimensions to take into account. A lot of time they have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other, short of having a conjugal relationship, for each individual 'cook', with POWER. Take social security as a BAD-OLD example. In the national debate, for example, which is now embroiling the 'machine', there are the hard and cold MERITS and DIS-MERITS of the program, which can be laid out in an objective fashion, taking into account its entire past history since its birth, and a realistic future, given all that we know about that. Then, there is the second-level spraying of subjective words by thousands of humans, lawyers all, in truth if not make-up, who have either an agenda to stay the status quo course, or to make some kind of change in things. On the Democratic defending left, the words are sure to have practically ZIP, ZERO, NADA to do with objective truth. Here is where the CRISIS most exquisitely lies---as they lie, it lies there! Bush and his foes each know they must play on the second-level playing field, which means using their 'bully pulpit' (see Ted Kennedy beating us all to a pulp, as he bullied the microphone at the National Press Club) to convince the unwashed masses to buy their view. So, the latest 'focus group' inspired needed change-in-strategy, for the Republican side is to avoid using the word CRISIS when describing the situation of social security, and instead talk up the opportunity of private accounts for the many young workers. Of course, the lefties know all about how that word pushes the fear buttons of people, so they will rely on it like the crutch it is, to excess, you can be sure. Here's the primeval Truth, though. Permeating all human time, indeed any play of disparate 'things' and 'beings', is the inevitable tension between individuals, or singularity, and groups, or multiplicity. (Read Nietzsche on the shame the superior man felt when he was forced to bow down to the law of the many.) Specifically pertinent to our 'social security' basket case, here, the real CRISIS is intimately related to this tangle. In fact, I would say it is THE American domestic problem, du jour, that epitomizes it. When it comes to American history, focus on what WW I wrought, in its aftermath. Here was the birthplace of big government, and in this deathly (to the individual) wake, when the fools in power caused the Depression, bad old FDR really started the BIG GROUP ball rolling, and social security was its successful three-point shot. Ever since then, the left wing Democratic Party has been in the ascendancy, piling up one GROUP thing on another, as INDIVIDUAL rights concomitantly were snuffed out. And, so, here we are today, at the end of a RUN of bad GROUPING luck, having to deal with the permeating crappy 'food' from generations of 'groupie' lawyers. Think of political America as identical to dietary America. It would be too much if all the political or dietary CRAP were piled high, in one location--- and social security is CRAP! So, the devilish, self-interested, groupie politicians, over time, found ways to distribute it---America is a HUGE land! Just as fat people, and otherwise healthy-looking ones, who eat less than healthily, deposit garbage and toxins in the many trillions of cells that make up their body, the same is, unfortunately, true in the political spectrum. What is the political 'spectrum'? How does it hum? SPECIOUSLY! I 'spect' that the best way to even more grossly express this is to hark back to some old existentialists. Was it Soren Kierkegaard who wrote, "Sickness unto Death"? What comes to my mind is the thought of humans with 'mush between their ears'. Ah, so much knowing what ISN'T so, and so much firm belief in one self! So little TIME! Back to the BIG 'CRISIS' punch line---it's actually not true, objectively, that social security is in a CRISIS, right now. It is true, objectively, that it is getting worse and worse over time, and the sooner a 'Chile' option is taken, the better for us all---except for Democrats! And, there is where the BIG CRISIS is! For all the fat-cat Democrats, who've been living high off the 'groupie' hog ever since the FDR disease started metastasizing, what Bush wants to do with social security is an arrow pointed right at their big government bloated heart. If he is successful in not only slowing down big government, but also reversing and killing one of its tentacles, their very existence is in doubt. Here's a clue. Take as given the CW wars in the public noosphere, as well as the behind-the-scenes hidden realities in both party's camps. By nature, the right wing is easier to see through, since it is based on love and transparency, which makes it harder for them to do battle with the dark force, the more obscure, lefties. So, what is the big tip-off, which tells the BIG STORY, about what Bush wants to accomplish? Remember, 'social security' is just ONE variable in the many-variables making up our human political equation. (Right now, I am back in a Junior High 'social studies' class, in the spring, when the political war between Bush and Kerry was really cranking up. The teacher had xeroxed a packet that delineated all the political issues that divide the two parties, and there were close to a hundred of them!) The answer is---Bush is smitten with Natan Scharansky's new book on the absolute need, and possibility for, DEMOCRACY! Forget about the esoteric debate between democracy and republicanism. The essence is that INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM is the goal, and Natan's book just happens to be the perfect truth-telling 'pill' that Bush has swallowed. This means, opening the FREEDOM umbrella most fully, that Bush, in his human heart of hearts, has transcended all national boundaries, absolutely. Here is another clear example of the distinction between PUBLIC and PRIVATE. It would be too CW twinky for him to come out and say what I just wrote, since New Age ideas are looked down on. But, my guess is that this is the driving force---after all, as a born-again Christian, can't compassion for ALL humans be the morning star, especially if you're the most powerful human alive? And, here may be the piece de resistance---the single imperative driving the attempt to change social security, and all freedom-inhibiting 'laws', in America, is the application of Sharansky's ideas to US, citizens of this hogged-tied-by-too-many-laws land! In short, he is trying to free up THIS country, even though most people don't even know how enslaved they are. Hello Plato's cave.
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