Some Solutions Are More Equal Than Others
Those with a bloodlust and think Democrats and Republicans should be at each other’s jugulars as their perverse form of “entertainment,” were undoubtedly disappointed that Governor Lingle’s inauguration speech did not delineate the battle lines at which the most brutal turf wars will be fought -- but instead of the familiar, claimed the frontier where we have not been before -- in innovation and new ideas.
Battles are never fought there, because boldness, courage and ingenuity is not that easy to come by. It is far more preferable to fight the familiar battles -- with the same predictable, controllable results -- than moving into new ground where only the truly able leaders feel comfortable. That is also where real solutions are likely to be found -- and not just “solutions” that exploit and perpetuate the age-old problems, which increasingly, is about age and the life never lived before.
People have lived to be a hundred before, but increasingly, is the possibility of living that life vitally until virtually the day one dies -- and not just slowly deteriorating a lifetime once one gets out of high school or other systematic forced programs to maintain growth and development. The real measure of that programming (education) is whether it can be sustained beyond the institutionalized setting and integrated into all one’s activities and life -- and not be one of the countless fragmentations, categorizations, and pigeonholing of our existences.
That’s the next step in progress -- and not just finding one more rags to riches story to report on. Once most people are off the plantations and educated, what is the new model of success? And does real estate speculation have anything to do with the homeless problem and inflation? It’s time we start connecting the dots -- that everything is related to everything else, and not just arbitrary depending on what the vested self-interests want us to believe.
If one attends these hearings often enough, one is amazed at the outrageous things that can be said, and not challenged by the reporting media -- usually because they are the most gullible and undiscriminating -- by company policy if not training and aptitude.
Of course the old status quo will maintain that nothing that hasn’t been said before, can be said now or at anytime in the future. Only the familiar and trite can be recorded and reported on -- which of course is the problem, but real solutions are the last thing they want to hear because the old problems have become so profitable to the entrenched status quo.
But at what cost to the greater society? We’ve never thought that way before -- about the Big Picture -- and not only what the partisan self-interest groups who paid for the election want. The solutions of the future will not be MORE partisanship and even bipartisanship -- but beginning and ending with nonpartisanship -- which is so mind boggling the editorialists will immediately proclaim that it is all nonsense and the politicians need to get back to the petty squabbling and turf battles that they define is the inevitable fate and destiny for politicians and government.
Thank God there are those who can see beyond.
posted by Mike Hu @ 10:08 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
It's been over five years now that there hasn't been another terrorist attack on US soil.
While one can't guarantee that nothing bad can ever happen again, five years from the freedom of fear, changes the world greatly from the reign of terror everyone tasted on 9/11/01.
Thank God for great leaders!
The more partisan a person is, the more mentally ill they become. Nonpartisan people are mentally healthy. Extremely partisan people are mentally disturbed -- no matter what direction of their extremism, which of course, they always think is in the right direction, for the right reasons -- but it is never healthy.
I think the future of politics is a movement away from partisanship -- or there is no hope for its participants; they just become more mentally imbalanced -- and drive all the healthy people away. These mentally imbalanced are generally the notable ideologues and demagogues. They are the extremists of the left and the right. They have nothing in common with mentally healthy people of moderate sensibilities and dispositions.
They are those filled with hatred for any well-balanced, fair-mined, independent-thinking person. They think everyone should be rabid, consumed with hatred, as a sign of their passion and devotion to their own cause -- which they think is more important than anybody’s life or feelings.
Undiscriminating people cannot tell the difference -- that some people are obviously sick in this way. Mental illness is something very seldom talked about anymore; it’s not politically correct to talk about people in that way -- when they so obviously are. Ambition is a mask for it -- the desire to become what one is not, while never understanding what one is, even despising what one is. And that is how they feel everybody should also feel about their lives.
Which doesn’t mean that one should be complacent -- but rather than rejecting what they are as inferior and undesirable, they should first assess who they are and what they already have -- before assuming they need MORE -- because the more is endless, leading to perpetual disappointment, bitterness and resentment, as a contemporary lifestyle.
Discontent for a good reason is valuable information -- but simply the generalized, insatiable desire for the more and what is NOT, is the root of all mental illness and dysfunction -- that many people who should know better, have programmed as the categorical imperative of their being. And of course, their mental illness is that they demand that everyone else MUST be that way also.
Such control freaks are usually found mostly in the professions now in decline -- in which people do the thinking for others -- like the union presidents, newspaper editors, talk show hosts, imams, shysters, and other demagogic programs of conditioning. People used to talk about that oppression -- until it became “politically incorrect,” to do so. Now, it is only permissible to repeat the praises the public service pronouncements of unconditional virtues their advertising agencies are promoting.
So it is very refreshing and striking to confront the real and authentic -- and to be able to recognize the difference. That is the real meaning and purpose of life -- and not the so many distractions to keep us from ever realizing that. The endless distractions are the same as the endless disappointment, bitterness, resentment, and conflict that consumes many lives.
Two or twenty distorted perspectives don’t make a right -- or whole, truthful perspective. That is the whole fallacy of bipartisanism as an improvement over sheer partisanship -- that both play the same game, rather than none of them playing it. Then there is a possibility of the truth being revealed -- and worked with.
What we have right now is shameless partisanship -- in which people think it is fair to tell the most egregious lies because “everybody does it,” which is their justification. Then if both do it, it legitimizes those tactics -- rather than being clear that they are distortions and deceptions -- which the media loves because it increases the controversy and animosity endlessly.
That kind of work doesn’t have to be done -- of which the sole purpose is to create conflict and the resulting work, that is counterproductive to societies. The defense given is that they are just being the “devil’s advocate,” which is more true than they realize -- they are doing the devil’s work.
They could be doing God’s work -- just as well; that is the difference between the antisocial, criminal mind, and the person of good will and good faith. Many are obviously criminals because they personally and openly inflict violence on others. Far more destructive however, are the manipulators who, while never overtly committing physical harm against another, cause many others to distrust and despise one another -- justifying their atrocities.
The main characteristic of such individuals is their controlling personalities -- that cause them to exploit and abuse others. They are psychopaths -- who delight in all manner of undermining human trust and good will. They are commonly seen in the mainstream media, fomenting ill will and hatred of one group against another -- generally the majority against a weaker minority. Confused people are often complicit in furthering those ends -- particularly thinking that evil intent can be nullified by an equal evil intent (response). These arguments are endless because those bent on conflict never run out of these fabrications to evoke the knee-jerk responses of counterargument and retaliation.
Some people think it is productive to refute all the arguments of a pathological liar -- but in doing so, there is no time and energy for doing any good -- which is what the controller wants, to disrupt the steady purpose of those who do good. Realizing this, one just needs to be aware of these diversions that have such power over himself -- until he can realize that they have no validity other than what one gives to them.
The malicious stop when they realize that the other realizes what their purpose is -- and puts them gently aside, as having no power. The negative person never has any power -- except to prevent the positive person from their work. The negative person creates a black hole that sucks up the positive energy of the universe -- but they have no power to do anything of their own. They have to act through other people. And so they are always trying to get somebody else to do something -- while they themselves never do anything. If they did, all the world’s problems would be solved immediately -- as they are no longer “creating” all the world’s problems.
Sam Waterhouse, who does "Timeline" on the History Channel, has started an online citizen movement that I thought you'd be interested in called Unity08, wherein their first goal is to hold an online citizen convention to elect a bi-partisan ticket in the 2008 presidential election (either a Republican or a Democrat for President and the opposite party for Vice President), they say, "in order to put an end to divisive politics and special interest influence", but I think it is simply a good idea to break down the power of the traditional partisan politics as a first step in establishing a Third Party, which I suppose might end up being a party that would want to capture the "middle" between the two. I see nothing wrong with divisiveness, when one side truly feels the other is wrong. Here's the website, if you want to check it out: http://www.unity08.com.
My view is that people should vote for anything but Republicans or Democrats since I think they both have failed the nation miserably in the last decade or two in that they are both in the pockets of special interests and hence a citizen cannot talk to his representative anymore (unless you are a big donor) nor will he or she even read legislation or vote (unless a party boss demands it) since he or she is too busy in his or her district raising funds, about four days of the week. A Congressman today spends an average of 2.2 days per week in Washington DC, and very seldom actually is in Congress since he is usually pandering to or being entertained by lobbyists, who are the Fortune Five Hunded and the G-8 nations, who bascially run the world now, with America's military might being their gang of thugs to enforce their economic interests.
All great nations including Greece, Rome and Britain slipped into the same problem of taking a bascially democratic ideal and letting it devolve into a government that is bought and paid for by the richest of the rich. In other words, even "democracy" itself is bought as a media package or a set of propaganda when no democracy actually occurs anymore in America today, except maybe in some highly contested elections or some local politics, but even then, it is often just a contest between Tweedle Dum (the Republicans) and Tweedle Dee (the Democrats), who, unlike our Founding Fathers, have no background in history, law, ethics or even political science. And, they today are often either Bible thumpers (hypocrites or no) or politically correct extremists, neither of which represent the majority of the American people, They are essentially PR, sportsmen, military hawks, yapping bleeding hearts or business people who voters like since they are likeable like prom queens and movie stars are likeable. Giants like Washington,Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy are no more, since the country is owned by puppeteers who organ grind the monkeys and prostitutes that have little qualification to be a representative or a national or even a state leader since they have little concept of right and wrong, except to define "right as success" and "wrong as failure", a kind of eternal football game where we are supposed to be enthusiastic about the red team or the blue team while the rest of the world are shaking their heads at what happens to a free and prosperous society in time, the people become dummies, more interested in their video games, cars and sitcoms than anything serious in the world today, such as human respect and decency for all people, everywhere.
But, I do think that regular Americans, just like regular jurors, if given the facts, unbiasedly, make good choices, when it is necessary to do so. And, if encouraged, they would run for office themselves and probably do a better job than their current representative since they are less likely to be bought off. Since the voters believe, however, that there are only two parties, they often choose one of the two, particularly since some perceive that Perot elected Clinton and Nader elected Bush. If voting for a Third Party candidate elects someone you like the least, it does not seem to to be worth it to vote Third Party. But it would not be true if to form a government, a party that did not get a majority had to come to compromise with another minority party so as to form a majority party, as is the process in most European countries. And since Americans seem so evenly split in the so-called "culture wars" of today, it makes more sense for there to emerge a compromise candidate, rather than reward the whole ideological pie to the winner(s). Although there are arguments that go both ways as to making any fundamental changes in America, I feel that we would have a healthier country that would reflect better a decent America to the world, if we did not pander to the major political parties and their big time supporters. De-emphasizing partisanship is probably a good since the parties represent only special interest groups, not Americans, who are very varied with those Americans who think of themselves as "independent" being at least 30% of the people yet do not elect hardly any "independents". I am an example of one of those "independents", who generally agrees with Republicans on most domestic policies but with the Democrats on most foreign policies. I am a traditionalist on moral issues but think we should try new ideas on just about everything else and I think that big private enterprise can be just as dangerous as big government and hence neither should rule America, yet I also feel that freedom breeds libertinism and criminality and allows greater chance for terrorism, yet without it, we are not America, so it is better to cherish the freedom and just stay alert for those that may take advantage of it. I come from an era when Democrats and Republicans often found "common ground" through compromise legislation, rather than blocking out the other party or the independent voice, as if dissident must be ex-communicated, which then makes winning the only thing important since there is so much to lose, when someone loses..
With Unity08 we may see what a convention of everyone would say, instead of a convention of just individual political parties. And, since the internet provides a free way for candidates and issues to get mileage as well as criticism, we can all save a lot of money if we realize that politicians and political parties need no money, if they would simply let Americans scutinize them online and in public debates and that real. Americans must demand that their leaders stop "hiding the weenee" and let us interview them for the job since we are the boss, not them, or their puppeteers.
A true leader not only does not pander to the highest bidder but may not even pander to the majority view since he or she may actually love the country and honesty more than what appears popular. I think that everyone thirsts for leaders that will tell us like it is, and then tell us what he or she thinks must be done, so that we can roll up our shirt sleeves and do it, and not be treated like babies where we have to be told what we want to hear, living in some kind of Fantasyland, since we are not grown up enough to just listen to an honest person who might say something like, we need not even fear fear itself since we have nothing to fear. There will always be threats to our country and way of life and we need to prevent or counter or frustrate those efforts, but not at the expense of selling our souls to the devil of American disconcern for the traditions of others.
Americans have always gotten ourselves our of all our dilemmas, whether it was taxes without representation, slavery, trust busting, progressivism, labor unions, World Wars I and II, the depression, the race to the moon, the Cold War or tyrants wrecking weaker nations and hurting innocent people. Sometimes it takes us five or ten or fifteen years to catch up, and get educated and get resolve and get it done, but usually we do it and do it well, if you look at the end game. I think we have made some big mistakes but to let fools lead us into more doesn't make sense to me and hence I really think this newer idea at unity08 might be a way.
Randolph Amen, J.D.
Randolph Amen was a Republican candidate for the US Senate in 1998 for the state of Hawaii. His email address is randolphjamen@yahoo.com
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