Those who cannot or refuse to reason act unreasonable (#2647)

     Logic is how we are able to discern what the intent of our language signifies and how it is utilized. The same goes for our actions. We do and others see what we do. So it is no surprise that when language and action are coordinated together a reasoned or unreasonable picture appears. I like to use the premise of logically coordinating my actions with my thoughts. You know live what I preach so to speak. Yet there are others who do not live by that standard. They preach one thing and then do another as it were. Then there are those who cannot or will not reason out their thoughts before they act on them. A sort of jumping the gun before the consequences of an action or actions is calculated.
    This is what I see in the republican party. They make accusations not based upon scientific or peer reviewed data and then act on it as if it were factually correct. To me the republican party has become the party of assumptions. They assume something is right or wrong and then act on that assumption with their standard harsh and brutish solution. What is even worse is that they are not consistent in their attacks on presumed rights and wrongs. It is their inability to blame anyone for anything that is outside the working/middle/poor class. As if every problem in society is a scar to the wealthy and the cut comes from the masses.
     For me, I see their problem is in their unwillingness or inability to reason. Logically speaking there are many problems and the problems stem from all quarters of life, yet not to republicans. I have always considered myself a simple person who occasionally entertains some complex thoughts. When I do entertain these complex thoughts I spend a lot of time reasoning them out logically. I question what kind of impact will these thoughts have if they became policy or what is alleviated by their inception? I try to see a list of good and not good and then weigh that list as to whether my thoughts are of value. I don't see that process with republicans, instead I see them already decided upon a value that helps the wealthy and hurts the less than wealthy and implementing it without a second thought.

Empowered by knowledge (#2646)

     Once your eyes have been opened to more, you realize just how lucky you are to have been awakened. There is always more so never settle for less. Knowledge is a most empowering paradigm. I have never felt so strong than when I have realized something new, especially when that new awareness changes the whole of who I had become. Shattered and rattled, knowledge is the ultimate quaking. it takes us from futility, from a place where hope is scarce, from where is this all there is? Knowledge thrusts us up into an enlightenment that is akin to the first sight of being birthed into existence.
     Few things compare to the experience of going from a simple understanding to a more complex one. Where not all things are exactly right or wrong but where there are degrees of what could and should be right and/or wrong. Where belief systems take a back seat to the two factors that are real, our human nature and our environment. Reality based knowledge does more for one's soul than the hope for a faith to be real. Accepting that we are human and live in this environment is reality and nothing more exists in reality except the building of knowledge surrounding these factors. The beautiful thing about it is that we are just now learning how to think like the logical beings we have evolved into.
     I have said it many times here in this blog. we are biological data processors. We have memory and sensors to accumulate knowledge that we store in our long and short term memory banks. We are mobile and can adapt to changing factors with an impressive comprehensiveness. Our environment is mostly stable but does have an uncertainty about it that challenges us to apply our curiosity in ever imaginative ways. We are an amazing species that although full of question, never relent to find answers. Reality is our base and knowledge is our inevitable manifest destiny to move beyond that base.

Protecting democray (#2645)

     Democracy, my main goal in life is to protect it. Why? Because democracy gives me the right to be equal in theory and practice with all others. We may attain different outcomes within our life spans but we all start out the same. The rest should be up to us based upon our own creativity and merit. We don't have that ideally yet here in America but we are close. So fighting to keep it and improve on it is foremost in my life's purpose. There are those who would take our democracy and change it to fit some idea they have about how we should live and think. It is these misguided folks who I am fighting against and no matter what their strategy to deny democracy as a slippery slope I will be there to stand against it.
     Let's use the current example of the lessening of rights for the LGBT community. Or the example of the attack on women's right to define the future of their own bodies. Or the attack on our individual right to vote. All of these and many more examples are how democracy is being undermined by those who would take rights form us and make our nation less equal. I am not an LGBT person, nor am I a woman, nor am I one who has had his right to vote taken away or made harder to receive. But I will defend each of these classes of citizens because like what we learned from the Nazi party in Germany, once you start accepting the loss of rights to any one group of people there will always be another group of people who will become the next target.
     So on and so on until you find that a group of people you are part of has come under attack from anti-democratic forces. So having learned that lesson, I fight for all groups to keep their democratically allowed rights no matter who they are or whether I am part of their group. I am protecting democracy in the bigger picture and that for me is the ultimate reason for my stance against those who would deny democracy to any and/or all. We have been given a great gift from our forefathers/mothers. I will not tarnish their memory by allowing that gift to be tainted by those who will not accept that democracy is most precious and needs to be protected.

Making the working/middle/poor class suffer is not how to address poverty (#2644)

     I look at the state of Wisconsin and see how a republican governor, legislature and now a majority conservative state supreme court have dictated a strategy of making the working/middle/poor class in Wisconsin pay a price for not being more successful. Republicans have taken the philosophy of "the carrot and the stick" to a lesser meaning by only applying the stick. Republicans seem to think that people are responsible for their own destiny despite all evidence to the contrary when they are faced with institutional barriers. The poor cannot just become wealthy without intervening programs and better education, along with more opportunities for decent paying jobs.
     What Wisconsin republicans have done is lessen resources for educational systems throughout the state, cut social programs that help sustain the poor when times are difficult and destroy good paying union jobs with right to work legislation that is improperly titled. It isn't just right to work, it is right to work for less. Giving the wealthy more of the profits from the labor side of the equation. It isn't enough that the republican governor there and his cohorts in the state's legislature have given the wealthy many unnecessary tax breaks which have reduced tax revenues urgently needed to repair the infrastructure, improve school environments and keep social programs available for those who cannot survive on less than livable wages.
     It isn't only Wisconsin that is suffering from a strategy of austerity that only benefits the wealthy and focuses much more suffering on the working/middle/poor class. Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and other midwestern and southern states are also reeling from the republican strategy to make the working/middle/poor class suffer. Beating down on the most vulnerable is the republican way and until we the working/middle/poor class start to figure out that we deserve better from our society than blame, it won't stop!

Again, privilege and advantage fighting to stay as the staus quo (#2643)

     The republican party is throwing everything it has into keeping the wealthy and powerful in control of our economy, politics and social behaviors. What I call the privilege and advantage crowd working overtime to maintain it's ability to suppress and obstruct most; while easing and pampering most everything else for the few. As I see it now over the last almost decade, those of us who are most harmed by the privileged and advantaged crowd have had enough and have been building momentum toward not only teaching what privilege and advantage is but to advocating and protesting more vociferously for it's dismantling.
     This momentum is even crossing political party lines as we all seem to be aware that politics has not necessarily been our friend. Although both major parties are not the same in many regards, they do share some commonalities like protecting institutional privileges and advantages, Democrats less so but there are within our party some who are aligned to keep the status quo as it is. In the republican party most all are in line with protecting the status quo and see any change of privilege and advantage as a real threat to their wealthy donors. I won't sugar coat any of this. Even the few bad actors in our democratic party must be held accountable and or purged from office if they will not join the vast majority of we working/middle/poor class in eliminating privilege and advantage.
     As to the republican party the whole of it is rotten to the core. They are few if any conservative republicans who wouldn't fight tooth and nail to keep the rest of us suppressed and obstructed from equal opportunities and a beginning foundation from which to express our merit and innovative qualities in order to pursue our life's dreams. There is some light housekeeping we need to do in our democratic party to eliminate the privilege and advantage crowd, but in the republican party there is only crushing them into irrelevancy as a solution. Vote like your life depends on it and make sure you never cast a vote for a republican again!

Defining the nature of our future human evolution (#2642)

     What we do right now will hopefully establish what our future should be like. We know what our past and present have been but what the future holds for us will be determined by what we do today. I am focusing as much on our own individual future in this context as on the future of our species, especially when it is in combination with society. Are we going to be the free thinkers who are beyond having to spend most all our days fighting and scraping just to stay alive? Or are we going to be able to focus on knowledge and what that can bring to establishing a foundation for our enlightenment?
     If you think that you are too insignificant you would be wholly wrong. Every breath we take has meaning. Every action we instigate is a step somewhere forward, even if it is backward, it is still somewhere. So decide if you want to be part of the force within our species that moves us toward a betterment. Like all souls who have lived, even those who accomplished little in the eyes of currently accepted peers, our thoughts and actions have a direction. So be in charge of the direction that your thoughts and actions reflect. Be a small but important cog in the metaphorical machine that moves our society toward the true nature of humanity, which are care and wonder.
     We must treat ourselves with an importance of greater destiny despite any and all commiseration we may find ourselves living in the whirligig of our current society. This current society does not reflect what is best about us, instead it makes us make decisions that are unworthy of enlightened human endeavor. A purpose has been shown here for all of us to grasp. A purpose to make a difference not only for our own mental health but for a future for our species continuation that is more applicable to what is best about our species. The honor of care and the nobility of wonder are our true natures and working to build a society that celebrates that for all of us is our next destination in this era.

I am still that 16 year old boy/man inside (#2641)

     I may be in my sixties now but damn it if I don't still have the sensations of that young boy/man I used to be. I remember the late sixties early seventies as my time to grow up and experience all that life had to offer. the world was out ahead of me and nothing was tying me down except my own wishes and desires. It was a tumultuous and inspiring time to be coming of age. From Vietnam and free love to the best music ever created, I was alive and full of sensations. I am not the physical specimen I was back then but my mind is alive with those memories. Which is why I still feel like the young boy/man I was back then.
     I still get excited getting to know someone who is attractive to me. It is like I am that inexperienced teenage boy all over again. Even when I sit back and listen to the music of my generation I get to toe tapping and finger popping all over again. I cannot get down and funky like I used to on the dance floor but my body sure does want me to try. Just like when I see the politics of today reflecting the same discontent and passion from our youth I get all up in my seat and want to holler out with them "this is not right"! The passion for right is as strong as the passion for attraction with me and that is something I think will never change.
     As well is the youthful concepts I have running through my mind. I still think like I am a kid who is full of hubris to change everything right now to make the world better. I know that it can be done regardless of what reality is constantly telling me. This is how I know that the drive and passion I have is still burning hot and bright and that is why I know I am fortunate not to have lost it. I have never been one who becomes cynical or a pessimist. It isn't part of my particular nature to be depressed and quit. I seldom win nowadays but I never quit because of that boy/man who still resides inside me.

I have faith in hope (#2640)

     It isn't religion that inspires my faith, nor is it a sense of privilege or advantage that fuels my faith either. it is hope. The hope that is generated by the will of people just like me. Those who never quit despite all odds against. It is amazing how often I get to see and learn of someone or something overcoming against great odds. Hope does that for me. That is what I have faith in. An indomitable spirit that although not probable has a way of succeeding. It is the fight we have within us that makes hope come to fruition. I have been disappointed many times when I have given my all to something but that does not stop me since I have learned that my success is in the trying, not necessarily in the succeeding.
     My faith that sometimes I can turn an improbable into a reality is secure. I do not get disappointed or defeated when I am unable to will my way to a solution. Instead I continue to fight on other fronts because I know that eventually I will succeed. I don't quit even when I have lost. I look at it this way as a metaphor, every fight is a battle, not the war. I may lose many battles but I will never stop fighting to win the war. In other words I never quit or give up. It isn't in my nature to stop doing or being what is better or best. If we all thought like this our problems would shrink dramatically and all our major concerns would have solutions.
     But we don't all think with a relentlessness to fight for everything that matters. We often quit because the going got hard and it inconvenienced us too much. It is a matter of priority and until we are as a society able to place the betterment of our society above our own individual concerns for our own economics and beliefs, we will never know the fruition of our greatest hopes. Our faith will be placed not in what is more perfect about us but instead in keeping ourselves from the battles where we truly belong. Yet, despite all the disarray of focus for our society on whole I keep the vigil to have faith in hope. Hope is where our future lies and hope is where I stake all of me.

The "do as I say not as I do" republican party (#2639)

     It is obvious to me anyway how the republican party likes to hold others to account but not themselves. There are too many numerous instances of this out there for me to even list them but as as example let's look at the standard of care they hold for their own constituents over the standard of care they hold for others who are not their constituents. Disaster relief being one such circumstance. When New Jersey was inundated with a horrific storm many republicans voted against helping them with federal aid. But now that Texas is inundated with horrific storms they desire the same help from the federal government that they previously voted to deny New Jersey. This is an obvious case of being extremely hypocritical.
     Another area of hypocrisy is the manner in which republicans want us to live under the dogma of religion, Christianity in particular, yet these same advocates wish to exclude themselves from these very strictures. Committing adultery, being involved in theft, drugging. Just a few examples of republicans in public office clamoring for a more religious based society while exempting themselves. Now none of this is news or a surprise to me since I have all along known that controlling the masses is the real agenda, not how we are to approach a moral life. Morality is the tool to crowd control and that is how republicans plan to actuate their version of our society.
     Instead of allowing our citizenry to participate in a democratic society, republicans want to maximize their control over us and minimize our participation in it. It is as if the republican party is using the illusion of religious doctrine to hide the fact that they want to be our sovereign. Republicans want to be the god like figure we hold in high esteem, through whatever means will work for them. Do not be fooled by their current appearance of being foolish. They are not fools and instead only wish to make fools of us.

The discipline of integrity (#2638)

     Integrity is a learned behavior. It is not naturally instinctual. What is more instinctual is our will to survive and often that has nothing to do with integrity. However, our civilizations have evolved into parameters that allow us to move from our more aggressive earlier state to a more evolved state of being. Yes, we are evolving as a species. As we gain more and more information as knowledge we move further away from our more primal state of being, which was necessarily a priority given the harsh and brutal nature of our environment. But creative innovation and logical sequencing has moved us past that era of our earlier human timeline.
     The new era we are currently in is one of transition. We can now hold ourselves accountable through the logic of our comprehensive consciousness. We are accountable to our society and to our species and "lesser" species as well. We have come to realize that the sovereigns we needed to placate our fears are less important now and more important is the rationalization of our constantly new and updated information processes. We are less fearful of existence now than we have ever been. Mainly because we have developed tools to help us make sense of what is right in front of us and out beyond that.
     The mysteries of life are coming to us in the form of answers, not quaking fear. As we continue on the path of modern rationalization we find that an honest and truthful approach is the most applicable form of communicating across cultures and languages. An integrity applied to discovery is the most useful form of bringing us all in to the process of learning from the unknown to make it known. Science and logic are doing this for us but having an honest integrity about it is as crucial as finding answers to questions that have stymied us for our entire existence. As I work to live my life with integrity our species is also moving forward into a new paradigm of behavior that reflects the advances we have made in our own enlightenment.

Privilege and advantage are not tenets of equality (#2637)

     I am all for those who earn greater rewards in life through merit and hard work. Those are after all the processes no one can dispute as to being legitimate. It is the privileges and advantages that I take issue with. The comprehensive overview of our laws and ordinances have come to take a position that allows for an easier path to success for those who already have a leg up in life than those who don't. The problem is at the foundation of our society, where there truly is no level starting point for all to begin from. Most, and by most I mean the less well off, have trouble just meeting basic standards for living let alone being able to compete with the wealthier among us. I do not chastise the wealthier for having settled their basic needs, but I do offer it as evidence that the less well off have no such beginning point. Therein lies the inequality of the beginning of opportunity.
     I advocate for a basic wage for all Americans so that the question of basic needs becomes for the most part moot. In practice we will have a society structured that will offer a beginning point from which all can participate equally. Surely there are problems to be ironed out but what we have now is unacceptable so a process to make things more equal as we begin our lives is urgently required. Our founders envisioned a more perfect union and as it is now, we are far from that well over two hundred years later. The status quo of status as a determination of respect and dignity has to be adjusted so that it isn't wealth that defines our place in society but our merit and character.
     We cannot know of whom merit and character are measured when we have so few who able to participate in expressing it. We must decide if our nation is a democratic one or an aristocratic/oligarchic/theological one. Where all lives of citizens are treated with respect to nurture and inclusion. The subtle but organized way we allow for democracy to be interpreted as less than principled is coming to a head. We, Americans who care for our democracy, can now show where privilege and advantage are undermining the intent of equality and opportunity so that it cannot be ignored. We have to choose and when the choosing time comes which side will you be on?

In the timeline of human life what is your marker? (#2636)

     I have a sovereign, but it is not what you may think. It is my conscience. I know what is right and good in just about every situation and circumstance and that idealism is the hoped for benchmark for my thoughts and actions. I am not close to being what I want to be but I am closer to it because of my ideals. I don't know what difference I can make in a world that continually turns over billions of souls as we live, die and new souls are born, but if I don't have a purpose like the one I have then what is the point of it all anyway? I can tell you now that many have already reached that cynical conclusion and as such have no regard for legacy or some unknown effect that may come from their actions while they are or were alive.
     I have felt the sensation of being honorable, of being noble, of sacrifice for something beyond me. I crave those feelings that I experience. It is what drives me to experience more of them. I understand my purpose to being as good or better a human being than not. The idea of having a purpose is to give me a mission to undertake. A plan for living that surrounds me with what is great about the human spirit and exemplifies what could be even greater about an evolving human species regardless if I am here to be part of it or not. I am but a blip on the timeline of humanity yet I feel that my being a blip is not insignificant.
     Maybe it is just me, a child who grew up to be a man that discarded fear for the power of courage. A child who knew the despair of hopelessness and refused to accept it. A child who understood that fighting for my own life was more important that letting it slip away into irrelevancy. A man now who knows that holding myself to a standard of respect and dignity is just as important as my own sense of selflessness. I am the model I created for myself to try to live as the human being I most admire. I don't look at others or to others to find my principles, I look within my own conscience and then try to live up to that.

Twice I have read through the King James version of the Bible (#2635)

     I am sorry to offend many of you who have not read through the Bible even once but here goes. There is some messed up stuff in there. http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/a-compilation-of-biblical-nonsense-by-barbara-g-walker?xg_source=activity. Naturally most just point to the not messed up stuff as inspiring and the thought of going to heaven seems to be enough to assuage most that the messed up stuff is worthy of ignoring or dismissing. The reason I bring this subject up is that the republican party seems, forgive the pun, "hell bent" on insinuating biblical premises and actual policies into our democracy. It is as if republicans do not recognize that the first amendment to our national constitution forbids any cross over between church and state. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment.
     Yet in today's society we have so many laws now being legislated that take from religious dogma and applies it directly against our rights and freedoms as citizens of America. We are a secular society and that translates to this: "Secularism is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries."-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism. We have many religious zealots among us who would change the nature of our federal government from one of being a democracy and instead making it into a theocracy. Imagine or not an American society similar to those in the middle east where religious dogma and religious interpretations are held in the hands of a few to determine the rights and privileges of the many. Are we becoming that which relies on myth and superstition as our guiding principles for governance?
     We have seen societies from our past and present attempt these religious societies and their anti science and anti intellectualism stances incoherently defy the logic of fact and reality. This is why our founders explicitly created our nation as free from religious intervention in making of our democracy. I on the other hand find that modernity and intellectualism is the path forward as it was naturally intended. The Bible and it's all too often elaborate machinations have no business being of any template to design a free and equal society.

America's heart beats less proudly (#2634)

     There is a political party here in America, republicans, that have slowly taken the soul out of our hearts. They feel that hurting people who are vulnerable is what is best for the vulnerable. All stick and no carrot. Apparently they have little conscience angst over their strategy. For all the world to see they are showing how cruel and brutish they can be to the vulnerable in our society. What they fail to see is that it makes them look petty and obnoxious. There are now 47 million of we Americans who live in poverty here in America. Republicans offer no help for us except around the edges and only by a small degree. Otherwise they have stood fast in denying help as a cure for poverty. I know it makes little sense but then again hate doesn't often show us logic.
     Republicans also deny help in reducing debt that our working /middle/poor class accumulated during the recent great recession and instead want to reduce the few burdens the wealthy have. Now the wealthy are enjoying the highest income disparity compared with the working/middle/poor class in a century and republicans are hell bent to make that gap even larger for the wealthy. The wealthy are as much to blame as the sycophant republican politicians for allowing their minions to undermine the health and welfare of our once more equal nation. The wealthy have a stake in our society to help along all of it's citizens toward democratic ideals, but instead the wealthy are all about profit at any cost, including the eventual destruction of our planet if they can turn enough of a profit.
     I had always felt that we here in America were especially fortunate to have moved our society toward an egalitarian one where all of us could get an honest and fair opportunity to pursue our happiness and help others do the same. We are not that America now. We are the America where blood and treasure are commodities for profit and the hopes and dreams of our citizens must be balanced against what is better and best for the wealthy. Republicans have betrayed most all the ideals of democracy and they are not done yet. Let us rise up and stop the insanity that republicans and the wealthy think is their privilege and advantage to own.

The hard never gets easy (#2633)

     The hard. Doing what is right when it there is a heavy price to pay. What ever it takes regardless of the outcome. The hard is where your principles meet reality. There is no excuse making or deflecting, it is just what must be done. Nothing about this existence confronts us with anything less than hard. We try to make things easy by taking shortcuts or ignoring facts or by figuratively changing reality to fit our comfort level. It is an illusion that is highly desired given the punishment often waiting for the effort to be real. The hard is worth it though. the hard is where your character is built. the hard is where your personality takes shape.
    I wish the world were less full of hard choices and hard solutions. Yet I cannot make it so by myself. I can however keep doing what is hard and smile despite the detriment it does to all comfort and safety I may desire. I am but a blip on the timeline of life so my little world of misfortune and failure is of very very very little consequence. So when I am allowed to fight for what is right at least I get to experience a power like none other. A courage to take what ever is flung at me through the whirligig of out of control motions. I can find solace and appeal in the idea that I can stand against the tide of easiness and cynicism.
     I was born with nothing but the skin covering who I am so why should I expect my end to be any different? All that happens in between is but marking time to do whatever my soul requires of me. So fight and defend my principles is what I honor. I accept that difficulty and the hard that comes with it but make no mistake I cherish it as well once I get beyond my own frailties. Oftentimes I forget that I will be what makes me, me and nothing that intervenes in that has a value worthy of what I hold dear.

Children who grow up in poverty (#2632)

     I know this one. I didn't get to choose which family to be born into. Yet I seem to feel the shame of it when I had to put all my energy into getting things that other more well off kids got for nothing from their parents. One example is the ten speed bike I worked to get during the summer between school and how I had to sell it just before school started to pay for some new school clothes. Little things like that. To keep from being embarrassed from always having to wear hand me down clothes and shoes. I remember many times my lunch sack had but a meager sandwich and an orange, from the tree in the backyard. How that made me feel sitting there with others who had full lunch sacks and snickered at mine.
     Each year after summer break our teachers would have us tell stories about our summer vacation and how it pained me not to have an exciting trip somewhere cool to discuss. We stayed home since there were many of us kids and not enough money for anything frivolous. It wasn't all bleak but the bleak far outweighed the better. Never having much of anything nice became a factor in how I related to others. Of course I was excluded from those who had more, they seemed to congregate quickly through the social ordering schools inevitably create. So my attitude became lesser of a happy go lucky guy with an earnest will to learn, to a not happy guy with less will to learn. School and it's discriminators make that happen very easily. At that young age peer pressure is enormous.
     No child should have to feel embarrassed because of the family they are born into. No child should have to feel ashamed that they have holes in their clothes or can't participate in some desired school activity because they cannot afford the ancillary items needed to participate. I remember the one time I went out for the school football team. I needed a pair of football cleats but no one in my family could afford to help me. Finally a generous neighbor gave me his old cleats. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to participate. I don't mind humbling myself now when I cannot attain that which is needed but as a child it was hard and put an undesired dent in my psyche.

Republicans attacking the disabled (#2631)

     I went to a post where it reiterated President Obama's push to include the totally disabled in a program that helps them with student loan relief. Now it isn't a perfect program by far as there still are lingering tax issues that must be dealt with but all in all it is an attempt to make the life of those who are limited in their physical and mental capacities a little bit less challenging. So I went to the comment section of the post and was filled with anger from conservatives who felt that they were footing the bill for these deadbeat disabled and called many of them fakers. For the life of me I was unsettled by the vitriol and it soon became obvious that these conservatives want no relief for anyone. Until you think about how you never hear conservatives say anything about corporate welfare.
     I can't imagine that the disabled would owe in total about a few billion dollars in student loans yet corporations receive over 92 billion in aid every year, http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/high-on-the-hog-the-top-8-corporate-welfare-recipients.html/?a=viewall. So what causes the conservatives to hate on the disabled, food stamp/welfare recipients, and unemployment and social security insurance participants and not the wealthy? I want to call them cowards. They attack those who are in difficulty while not saying a word about those who could fight them back easily enough. Much like bullies who go after the weaker ones to make themselves look tough. They also refuse to recognize that 47 million people live in poverty while there are only 5.4 million job openings, many in technical fields that require higher education and many in the lowest paying jobs that keep people in poverty.
     I suppose I should not only call them cowards but slow witted as well. The reason these disabled went to higher education in the first place was to try and get one of those better paying technical jobs in the first place and most ended up with a huge debt instead. I can't stop conservative republicans from speaking their vileness at the downtrodden but they cannot stop me from calling them out as the cowardly slow witted haters that they are.

The darkness wealth brings upon most souls (#2630)

     Since I have never been wealthy this piece may seem to be pretentious on my part. Since I value personal experience as a a critical element of objective knowledge. Yet I don't base this piece on that specifically, only generally. I cannot say for certain or with any authority that what I do use, my observations, are neatly convincing. However, what is indisputable is that once wealth has been obtained, most do not live in an environment of pre-wealth existence. Another noticeable trait is that wealth creates new desires. When souls are around other souls who struggle the struggles themselves are the most vivid reminders of our care for each other, whereas when removed from those struggles, they diminish in our psyche's priority.
     Instead of the pain and suffering of ourselves, our families and friends, as our critical reminder of how most live, the wealthy are not so burdened by those happenings and instead focus on the comforts and glories the new wealth make possible. Moving to new digs that are exclusive and glamorous take the visual effect of poverty and lesser off souls from our minds and are replaced with what beauty can be bought. This doesn't make the wealthy bad for wanting a break from what is reality for most everyone else, but it does begin the process that takes the wealthy away from the urgency of misery.
     What does become the problem is the slow evolution from the effects of wealth accumulation upon most all living souls to an artificial reality where money can make the justifications that those who are not wealthy deserve their lot in life. An acquiescence to the cynicism that the wealthy are more special than those who are not wealthy. The wealth illusion feeds upon itself to make sure it can maintain it's superiority over their natural consciences. The wealthy are not born as the ego driven that wealth appears to make so many of it's members, Instead the wealth class intuits it's members to change who they were into something they are not. But once there they perpetuate the problem. Very few can fight to get back to a principled human being if they ever were. Wealth has a dark side that infects what is better and best about all of us, our care and our wonder.

Another rant against American republicans (#2629)

     To the world at large and all of us here at home. There are many of us who are not American conservative republicans. We are progressive liberals who see the gaping flaws in our particular economic capitalism. We also see the necessity to winning over public offices throughout our country in order to stop the anti-democratic push from republican policies. We are here and are waging our own effort to overturn the effects of a previous conservative majority Supreme Court that among a few things adjudicated that money is speech and corporations are people, while also telling us that the effects of racism were in our past. Just these few horrendous outcomes have given republicans what they need to restrict the vote while also drowning out voices of opposition against them.
     American conservative/republicans are a scourge here because they do not know how to live within democratic principles. Instead they have chosen to live under the cunning of capitalistic dogma. You know, where dog eat dog represents the worth and value of a nation. These republicans are taking our democracy and are trying to replace it with a combination of religion as defined by them and an oligarchic structure where only the wealthy are the true decision makers of American policy. These republicans are not representative of the majority of us here but their wealth gives that impression.
     There are nearly 47 million of us here living in poverty https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/. While there are about 5.4 million job openings http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm. That the disparity is such isn't even the worst of it. Too many of these 5.4 million job openings are technical by nature and require degrees we poor Americans do not have http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/07/news/economy/us-economy-job-skills-gap/?iid=EL. With the outrageous cost of higher education, few from the poverty class can even consider going to college http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/01/25/the-high-cost-of-higher-education. So while republicans continue to blame the poor for being poor, many do little to nothing but work to create more poor people. Republicans need to be stopped from holding public office and now is the time to do it!

Three things we need, logic, science and love (#2628)

     I am always attempting to fill myself with logic and science. My mind is like a magnet when it comes to understanding how things work and how to explain it. Nothing gives me the thrill in life like becoming aware of something previously unimaginable. It is what I live for as far as motivation goes. Yet there has always been a part of me that is unresolved or more accurately unsettled. I have come to know the power and fulfillment of intimacy with another. In the past in my life I have had a few personal relationships that were deeply experienced with love at the core. Now unfortunately they did not last for any great length of time but the time we did have opened my eyes to what could be.
     Again I will describe our basic nature as it is. We are biological data processors, with 5 senses to help us gather data from outside and from within ourselves. We have memories from which to gather information readily available and to comprehensively add to that with new incoming data. We are also able to reason, analyze and conclude based upon our stored data. Our physical abilities, although not universal throughout the laws of physics do give us the ability to move and settle. Our ability to imagine from our minds new possibilities that awaken creativity from within us is also remarkable. We are an adaptive species able to conceptualize beyond what is in front of us. In other words we are an incredible form and an indomitable one.
    Yet we are not just about the science and the logic. We have emotion. We feel sensations that "touch" our souls and make us realize that we are not just individuals in a community of individuals. We need the connections to each other in order to satisfy more than our abilities, we need the human touch of another as a necessity. Within this need we have for each other there are even greater experiences. When two humans meet and find a special chemical attraction based upon surely scientific anomalies, an occurrence called love will form. Not just the love we have for our family members at large, but a greater love that we feel, for lack of a better word, for our soulmate. I have yet to find this for myself but many others have already and combining science, logic and love as a purpose in life that has been achieved is a rare and beautiful thing indeed.

The wealthy and their followers still blaming the poor for not being rich (#2627)

     Positions of privilege and advantage have their well, privileges and advantages. How the few who somehow do become successful can sit back and tell the rest of us that we aren't trying hard enough is rich, literally and figuratively. Apparently through all their privileges and advantages they failed to notice that in a capitalistic society very few come out on top. That is the very nature of capitalism, not some grand illusion that we can all be wealthy conservative/republicans seem to be trapped in. By the very nature of capitalism only those few who somehow, legally or not, are able to navigate the waters of capital acquisition in order to bring their products or ideas to the market have a chance to succeed.
     Most ideas or products from our innovative and merit driven ones are hijacked from them in the diabolical process we have as capital financing. The wealthy are quite agile in forcing their way into new areas of development by compromising ownership and control of burgeoning creations. That way the wealthy stay wealthy and new ones who are able to keep a semblance of their ideas or products are left with far little because of the mergers they must make in order to realize their dreams. And those are the lucky ones. Most all others are left with little to nothing to show for their products or ideas.
     We are the ones who are used by the capitalists to oil their machinery of success. When we take our 40 hour or more a week jobs from them they feel no loyalty to our labor, they only feel loyalty to their bottom line. Capitalism is not about making society more equal or about improving the prosperity of all of it's citizens. Capitalism is about survival of the fittest and eventually becoming, like the child wrestling activity, king of the mountain. So for all those wealthy and their illogical followers who continue to blame the brokenness of poverty on those of us who are poor, I say you are the problem for why our nation has become a laughingstock to the world for our lack of democratic values. Meanwhile we poor continue to suffer at the hands of the foolish and greedy. My guess is that it won't be much longer.

Being truthful makes you strong (#2626)

     I know this one well. I used to try to pawn off my inability to understand things with a lot of baffling with bullshit instead of dazzling with brilliance. What I didn't know back then when I was younger and full of myself was that I was trying like hell to take every shortcut in life I could because somehow I felt more entitled to be alive than others. Yes, I was an egoistical little punk, as I look back on it now. For all the smarts I was able to acquire and good fortune to having been raised in a more poor than not but loving home, I sure was full of myself and what existence should be about instead of what it is about.
     So I spent way to much time being taught the same lesson over and over in many different ways until I finally grasped the concept that I was not special, nor extraordinary. I was just another human trying to make his way in a large group of other humans. it dawned upon me that I wasn't deserving of special treatment when I looked around me and saw all the harm and suffering being dished out on a daily basis to way too many people who had the misfortune of being born in the wrong country or to the wrong parents. I also realized that my perspective was two dimensional, devoid of the depth of experience which opened my eyes to how hard life is for the vast majority of we humans.
     The wealthy and their advocates like to talk about how everyone has the potential to be successful, but what they don't talk about is how that potential is manipulated and beaten down with unassailable obstacles and trickery in the name of nuanced law. Those that have wealth do not wish for others to join their ranks. They enjoy being self satisfied and want no competition that would take their self satisfaction away. Me, I could care less about the whims and desires of the wealthy when all around me I see the faces of those who cannot nor will not ever see the sunny side of success in our difficult if not impossible to break into economy.

An argument against the Catholic Church stance against birth control (#2625)

     Sometimes I just scratch my head and wonder at we humans. We want so hard to have a "belief system", that contrary to logic and science we ignore and discount facts and truths. Are we afraid of what happens to us after we die? Do we put so much stock in there being someplace like a lake of fire we will tossed into if we don't accept some "belief system"? Does that fear of eternal damnation so scare us that what is reality around us is of a lesser value? I don't know all the reasons for why we must have a "belief system" but it seems to be so ingrained into our psyches that it is difficult to extract it using just logic and science, but here is an attempt by me.
     I choose the subject of birth control because it is simply explained using the Catholic church's own dogmatic stance. They say they are against using birth control and that it is an offence against their religion. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/21/condoms-birth-control-catholic-church-short-history. Yet I want you to imagine a world where there is no birth control. Let us say that at some future date there are so many children being born that every square foot of dry land on Earth is now occupying a human being. Now here is where my argument takes place. The Catholic church would then be presented with a dilemma, either continue the practice of not allowing birth control or change the practice in order to stop the influx of new births.
     If the Catholic church continues with it's no birth control stance then deaths from over population will inevitably follow. Not enough space for humans to occupy which would result in a survival of the fittest scenario. Or if the Catholic church does decide to change it's policy on birth control and allow it then the dogma that was against birth control is only as holy as it fits particular scenarios. So, at least one rule of the church is subject to environmental factors. Which is what logic and science base most all of it's reasoning, analysis and concluding upon. Being so afraid of some afterlife scenario shouldn't be why we refuse to just accept that we don't know and live the rest of our lives trying to figure that out without some myth, more or superstition to obscure the reality that logic and science are quite capable of answering.

Always vigilant to do no harm (#2624)

     My political philosophy has not changed with me getting older or into better economic circumstances. Nothing changes what I know to be a factual. I don't get cynical because things are hard to accomplish. I am who I am and for that I am grateful. It isn't easy being grounded in my principle to cause no harm. I am human and my frailties are tempted constantly. Yet I also pause and reflect before making decisions so that I can again come back to my core and remember who I am and what matters most to me. I have compromised my principles in the distant past and vividly remember the guilt and remorse of my decisions. I have no time for relearning old lessons. The temptations may have changed but the dishonesty of the feeling hasn't.
     Many wonder why I do care to make a stand on principle when we are able to disguise our methods and manipulations at will. Simply for me it is because I have an amazing conscience. It is my rock and my center stone for living. I have found the mystery of myself and I will never let it go for some shiny object or some ego laden glad handed platitude. What is personal to me is also precious. I will not fight against the very unique individual nature I have of me. Instead I will embrace it and hold my head high regardless the consequence or stigma others who don't feel the same would aim at me.
     I am a vigilant soul as well, so not only am I who I am but I am stout to defend it at all costs. Nothing in this existence is a given. All of it is fragile to all of us. So for me to be less than who I am is not only a disservice to me but as well a disservice to those I admire. I will not grovel through life or be at the by your leave of another because some fear or greed has me trapped. Nothing in life is more valuable than the integrity we each get to display. Be yourself at all costs and let the chips of life fall where they may. At least you will know that they have fallen honestly and with respect to your own principles. I am the captain of the biological, time limited, spaceship Carl and all that is me will be part of who I know I am.

The carnival barker or the religious zealot (#2623)

     It appears that republican voters have whittled down to two, remaining viable contenders for their presidential nomination. One I call a carnival barker and the other a religious zealot. Trump, the carnival barker, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIAbMLoLlyU is capable of selling a ticket to his show through hook or crook. He has the ability to nuance his message just enough to attract those who are easily distracted from reality by offering an outlandish alternative. His histrionics are carefully utilized to sensationalize the mundane in order to disguise that he is not a person of depth nor wise conceptualization. Thus the carnival barker moniker. He plays to his audience in order to bring them into his tent so that he can fill them with a lust and greed that they so desperately desire.
     The other is Cruz, the religious zealot, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/22/1473694/-Ted-Cruz-I-m-a-Christian-first-American-second-Imagine-if-Muslim-or-Jewish-politician-said-that. He has made it clear that his allegiance first and foremost is to his "belief system" not to our democracy. It sort of begs the question of why he isn't in a pulpit somewhere extolling the virtues of his "belief system" instead of trying to become the leader of our democracy. Upholding democratic values of equality, fairness and opportunity are often in conflict with religious tenets, so he is saying that when conflicts do occur he would side with the religious tenets over democratic values. This is the state of republican politics as of this writing. Two republicans who have little respect to no idea of how democratic principles have built our great nation. Both want to supplant democracy with either illusion or theocracy.
     There are many republican voters out there who would seem to be happy enough with either candidate so trying to be rational about the ridiculousness of this race would be foolish. Our American electorate is not a well educated one when it comes to politics or our own civic history. We are a continually less articulate society that has much too much confidence in our own individual conclusions. We fool ourselves with short cuts because we are not strong or demanding enough of ourselves to do things the right way. All we are doing is taking what is still great about our country, land of the free and home of the brave, and whittling that down to land of the enslaved and home of the fearful. We are apparently about to get what we unfortunately deserve with either republican.

Vibrancy is our flow (#2622)

     If you haven't figured it out by now let me state it here. Vibrations are the rhythm by which we flow. Everything in life has a vibration to it. Waves are the common denominator that links us all. From our hearing, seeing and feeling, waves are the manifestation that we eventually sense and absorb into our collective knowledge base. The most perfect example of this for me is how particular music takes me to highs and lows of emotional sensation. I can be sitting in one spot with nothing particular on my mind until I hear some rhythmic sound and instantly I am transported to some magical place where everything is perfectly possible.
     It is as if I have found a direct path to my core. I no longer wonder who I am or what I will be, I am just me right now listening to beauty. Everything makes sense. All the visions of reality that are represented by the motion of the micro/macro world through vibrations and wave lengths comprehensively form the visual panorama, those of us with sight, are better able to enjoy. The majesty on display is no coincidence, the vibrations are not a symphonic chaos, instead they are the logical progression of the rules of science being applied to all matter. Understanding that motion is the lifeblood of human existence is nothing new but knowing that motion is our path, our future, our destiny is somewhat hard to grasp for many.
     The immeasurability of motion would leave no binds to what is possible, yes, even change is subject to motion. this offends some who would think that we have come as far as we can as a species and going further forward is not acceptable. But motion will not be deterred by an unwillingness to admit to it being factual. The analogy to an Ostrich with it's head in a hole in order to avoid reality is akin to what these folks practice. Yet despite their unwillingness to embrace life as it is life will go on regardless. The rest of us who know that controlling what motion will do next as it relates to change will be better for it and more adaptable when the change ultimately does occur.

Overruling passion with logic (#2621)

     I may have been able to simply type the phrase overruling passion with logic but nothing else about that phrase is simple. For more times than not, I had failed to be able to do so despite the logic being very clear to me. If others have the same type of intense passion that I do then you know how difficult cutting off one's passion can be. Let's just say that of the times I made a fool of myself most everyone of them has been because I went against the logic of suppressing my passion. I am an emotional person who thinks he knows that his passion can be controlled through logic. Knowing it is one thing applying it in real time is another.
     Yet, that is what must be done. I am older now and fortunate that my chemical makeup isn't the red hot fire that it was when I was a teenager or in my twenties. Although my passion hasn't diminished, the intensity of it has. Still though applying logic to my emotion is the correct struggle. As badly as I feel or want something to be what I conceive of it to being, logic has to supersede my analysis when I am so biased. What I forget is that usually my passion doesn't stop within me, it affects others and that calculation and all it involves has to be part of my reasoning and analysis. Also the efficacy of my passion as it relates to public and private matters has to be balanced against a greater view.
     I am no less passionate about whatever subject I feel so emotionally drawn toward. I realize that the good of something should never be thwarted by the great of the same thing. Most every time moving forward toward my desire of want is enough progress when compared to it moving further away or ending. The bigger picture sees both the good/great outcome or a bad/destructive ending from the same equation. Which is why logic is needed to guide the ship of my emotions/passions. As I get older and wiser I see the necessity of progress much more now than when I was young and full of youthful vigor, ready to destroy all around me in order to make something an ideal. I control my passions now and remember that leaving the world in a better place than when I got here is a noble and endearing ambition.

When will the time come for the Democratic vision of Keynesian economics to begin? (#2620)

     What is Keynesian economics? In short it is a mixing of private enterprise with public policy. Where the private sector cannot alleviate an ailing societal economic symptom, the public sector comes in to fill the void and prevent erosion of an otherwise healthy economy. A combination of private and public spending that serves the will of the people. Our social programs are one such entity, whereas the private sector fails many who cannot climb out of poverty, the public sector comes in and gives a helping hand up. Remember, private enterprise is all about maximizing profit, not ensuring a stable and growing economy.
     Republicans have not held Keynesian economics to any regard and instead believe in an austere approach where capitalism is left to it's own devices and the free market as it's only regulation. You know, if people don't like it they won't buy it or if they like it they will buy it. There are many problems with this approach; first there are no safety nor quality controls that balance out the good of society as opposed to those who seek to make profit. Second, as has been shown, the free market seeks out the widest gap between low wages and high prices. What the eventual reality becomes is that there are not enough earners to buy many products. So many go without while a few have all they need. Again, not a fair balance within our democratic society.
     What Keynesian economics will do for us is create public sector jobs for federal or state workers as well as jobs for private contractors to bid on. Make work projects that serve a societal function like infrastructure repair and replacement. Not only does the fixing of our infrastructure give us a more attractive business friendly allure but it also provides safety to those who utilize the technology. While the upgrade is significant in attracting new businesses the greater good of supplying jobs to our citizenry and the buying power that creates stirs economic activity across a wide range of manufacturing and retailing outlets. Which then create more jobs because of the higher demand. All the while new taxes are generated and returned back into the public coffers. Win/win.

Unfettered capitalism is like the game Monopoly, in the end there is only one winner (#2619)

     Capitalism offers all of us some hope at the beginning but in the end capitalism will only reward one. It is the nature of competitiveness, to beat all others to the prize. There is nothing wrong with that if we can offset capitalism with safeguards that protect the rest of us who are not the eventual winner. First of all that initial hope we may have all had to being highly successful is more illusion that reality. When trying to climb the ladder of success we are met at every level with those who would use what we have built to maintain their own. So as the more successful we get the more others are set to use what we have built to manipulate away from us for their very own.
     It often happens because capitalism requires us to find capital from those who have it in order to proceed in our ventures. We then become partnered with those who have capital and the wherewithal to outmaneuver us while they increase their ownership of our venture. This isn't some great shock, those who have are not in the business of giving up what they have unless they feel secure in increasing their having. So what starts out as a creative or innovative concept on our part soon enough becomes parceled out to many others simply because they have capital that we don't have.
     Instead of financial institutions set up to deliver to us the means to low cost capital in order for us to be successful, financial institutions are set up to act as a wedge that we must choose given no other resource for our venture to continue. This wedge is "selling" part of what we are doing in order to continue. So the path forward in the capitalistic paradigm is fraught with compromise and less and less control. That is the path in an unfettered capitalistic system. This is why it is difficult to build a success without carpetbaggers and interlopers ready to pounce on any success that may occur. We must have a capitalistic system but not an unfettered one. Where the profit from an idea or innovation shouldn't come from moving money around, but from the application of the product or idea itself.

By weakening public schools republicans are weakening the middle class (#2618)

     It is NOT a coincidence that state school funding gets cut under republican leadership. In order to preserve or create new tax cuts for the wealthy, the republicans take from the future of our youth, our workers, women in particular and our seniors. The wealthy can already afford to give their children top notch private educational resources, while in the public sphere, each new cut from public education makes it much harder if not impossible for more and more non wealthy students to compete with their wealthy student counterparts. Public education was meant to be the great equalizer in education. It's goal was to give all of us a chance to succeed on a somewhat level playing field.
     Public education isn't perfect in it's goal but it was and is a tremendous tool to help close the gap between the haves and the don't haves. With republicans cutting public education they are showing in another unambiguous way that they do not care for the middle class. In their perfect little vision of the world, if there were a larger poor class, their wealthy donors would be well positioned with unlimited cheap labor. What I am saying here is that republicans and many of the wealthy place their potential profits above the interests of the democracy that allows them to flourish. In other words, they are cavalierly cutting off their faces to spite their noses.
     Since there are many times over more in the middle class and poor class than any other class it would seem logical that the middle class would make sure it was registered to vote and then vote all republicans out of office. Yet things are never as simple as that. We have seen in this latest presidential primary campaign where divisiveness and propaganda can influence many within the middle class to vote against it's best future. Where even today after decades of little to no wage growth for the working/middle/poor we are still having a hard time giving ourselves the due of a wage increase, despite the FACT of the wealthy enjoying the greatest income inequality gap. Despite most all profits going to the top one tenth of one percent. It is as if we aren't being taught the basics of education. Sound familiar?