Opinion
Walking on a path alongside a creek the other day, I came across an old car battery that had been dumped there. Although I realized someone had taken special care and made a deliberate effort to discard a battery this far from civilization, I nevertheless carefully picked it up and put it in the garbage bag I always take when hiking, to legally dispose of it later.
Now don’t get me wrong: the only reason I pick up trash is because it usually clashes with the landscape, not to save the earth … like our conservative brothers and sisters (and aunts, grandfathers, and in-laws …), I ain’t no friend of the earth, no sir!
Like them, I miss the days when government stayed out of our lives and we had the god-given freedom to dump whatever wherever, like used engine oil and coolant in the rivers and lakes along with old tires, televisions and used mattresses … so convenient and so much in sync with industry!
So don’t confuse me for one of those tree-hugging, soil-kissing, limp-wristed eco-freaks who are always asking what they can do to help the earth … what for, haven’t they heard Jesus is coming?
As all good right-wingers know, or should if they were not bad apple moderates, Christians owe it to God to trash the planet as much and as fast as possible to ruin it for those who will be left behind, the non believers, the unrepentant sinners, the devil’s crop.
Anyway, it is patriotic to pollute. When they said “love your country” they meant the flag, darn it, not the land, unless it can generate a buck, unless every square inch can be cultivated or ranched on an industrial scale, drilled, mined, or bought and sold for profit.
Who has ever heard of needing or loving the earth resources for anything else than survival and wealth, of loving the trees, the sky, the mountains? What have we come to? OK, if you insist maybe a photographer or and artist can create a picture of this or that last wilderness for posterity before we blow it up for coal or uranium. Happy?
The earth is like a lemon, to be squeezed and discarded when used up, when the privileged amongst the human race will either find another juicy planet to colonize and squeeze, or else be saved by the second coming.
While we are at it, and since America, as reported recently by grassroots Republicans, is under assault from a global socialist conspiracy, let’s fight back and do away with all those terrible liberal policies that have weakened the nation far too long, such as the 40-hour work week and minimum wage, so the American workforce is no longer put in a position of disadvantage with illegal immigrant workers, and can properly compete for sweatshop positions and other opportunities, such as working in the fields picking strawberries without superfluous protection against pesticide sprays. Yes, sir!
As a matter of fact, let’s no longer be shy and stand for what’s right. Golly, let’s go back to true conservatism and undo all that was unfairly imposed on the unsuspecting public and on industry and business in the past 100 years by those overeducated liberal do-gooders, who should have stayed home eating quiche or drinking high tea.
Like the outcome of the Suffragette movement. now every decent follower of a middle-eastern patriarchal religion like Christianity knows God said woman must obey man, ain’t it? Yes, sir!
How about the silly labor law that prevents ambitious children from working and taking part in the American dream, let’s do away with this anti-business, anti-American law, we got mines to dig and coal to haul and petrol to refine!
Now if the Federal Bureau of Investigations had been allowed to do its job, instead of a Martin Luther King day we would have a Jim Crow day, and anti-segregation laws would have never been imposed on the majority population, why if you can’t even oppress, persecute, hate members of a minority group because of skin color, what are you supposed to hate them for, hair color?
And let’s bust unions, gut the clean air and clean water acts, make the Environmental Protection Agency a tool of industry, and lower all environmental protection standards so industry does not have to spend a penny retrofitting its outdated operations, or being made to no longer use the environment as a sewer for arsenic, lead, dioxins, and other poisons the taxpayer pays to clean up.
Oh, I forgot, the Bush Administration and Republican governors already did all that, good for them, that showed them all earth-worshipping eco-geeks what red-blooded America stands for.
Let’s finish the job and annihilate all protected species (especially the ones that look good hanging on the walls of a country estate), outlaw clean air and clean water all together so there is no more whining about such irrelevant matters, clear-cut, mine, drill and bulldoze all national parks and other wasted pristine lands, outlaw all non-chemical and non-GMO foods such as natural and organic products (any individual farmer who cannot compete with a multi-national corporation needs to be eliminated ASAP, I believe Darwin said so), cut off all social programs and close all medical facilities to those socialists who do not have private medical insurance (weaklings cannot expect to get a free ride on the shoulders of the strong and the mighty, that would be unnatural … let’s stick to the fundamentals of conservatism, shall we?).
And why hesitate to do the truly conservative thing and eliminate government completely? Except, of course, for the military, surveillance and intelligence gathering, torture chambers and corporate welfare. Anything else is unnecessary, why would America need a functioning infrastructure when it has the mightiest military in the world, permanent martial law, and the ability to control segments of the population peeved by environmental disasters such as Katrina?
Who are those commie fools who need the government to do everything for them, from the cradle to the grave, like replacing crumbling bridges and paving roads? What’s more important, having the military muscle to impose our will on the entire world or offering a decent education to our children?
It’s no contest, brain is overrated, everybody knows intellectuals are not to be trusted, and let’s be frank, thinking is unpatriotic, in a neo-conservative world of global and permanent war you either submit to conservative military-industrial complex leadership or you are with the enemy.
Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.
Now don’t get me wrong: the only reason I pick up trash is because it usually clashes with the landscape, not to save the earth … like our conservative brothers and sisters (and aunts, grandfathers, and in-laws …), I ain’t no friend of the earth, no sir!
Like them, I miss the days when government stayed out of our lives and we had the god-given freedom to dump whatever wherever, like used engine oil and coolant in the rivers and lakes along with old tires, televisions and used mattresses … so convenient and so much in sync with industry!
So don’t confuse me for one of those tree-hugging, soil-kissing, limp-wristed eco-freaks who are always asking what they can do to help the earth … what for, haven’t they heard Jesus is coming?
As all good right-wingers know, or should if they were not bad apple moderates, Christians owe it to God to trash the planet as much and as fast as possible to ruin it for those who will be left behind, the non believers, the unrepentant sinners, the devil’s crop.
Anyway, it is patriotic to pollute. When they said “love your country” they meant the flag, darn it, not the land, unless it can generate a buck, unless every square inch can be cultivated or ranched on an industrial scale, drilled, mined, or bought and sold for profit.
Who has ever heard of needing or loving the earth resources for anything else than survival and wealth, of loving the trees, the sky, the mountains? What have we come to? OK, if you insist maybe a photographer or and artist can create a picture of this or that last wilderness for posterity before we blow it up for coal or uranium. Happy?
The earth is like a lemon, to be squeezed and discarded when used up, when the privileged amongst the human race will either find another juicy planet to colonize and squeeze, or else be saved by the second coming.
While we are at it, and since America, as reported recently by grassroots Republicans, is under assault from a global socialist conspiracy, let’s fight back and do away with all those terrible liberal policies that have weakened the nation far too long, such as the 40-hour work week and minimum wage, so the American workforce is no longer put in a position of disadvantage with illegal immigrant workers, and can properly compete for sweatshop positions and other opportunities, such as working in the fields picking strawberries without superfluous protection against pesticide sprays. Yes, sir!
As a matter of fact, let’s no longer be shy and stand for what’s right. Golly, let’s go back to true conservatism and undo all that was unfairly imposed on the unsuspecting public and on industry and business in the past 100 years by those overeducated liberal do-gooders, who should have stayed home eating quiche or drinking high tea.
Like the outcome of the Suffragette movement. now every decent follower of a middle-eastern patriarchal religion like Christianity knows God said woman must obey man, ain’t it? Yes, sir!
How about the silly labor law that prevents ambitious children from working and taking part in the American dream, let’s do away with this anti-business, anti-American law, we got mines to dig and coal to haul and petrol to refine!
Now if the Federal Bureau of Investigations had been allowed to do its job, instead of a Martin Luther King day we would have a Jim Crow day, and anti-segregation laws would have never been imposed on the majority population, why if you can’t even oppress, persecute, hate members of a minority group because of skin color, what are you supposed to hate them for, hair color?
And let’s bust unions, gut the clean air and clean water acts, make the Environmental Protection Agency a tool of industry, and lower all environmental protection standards so industry does not have to spend a penny retrofitting its outdated operations, or being made to no longer use the environment as a sewer for arsenic, lead, dioxins, and other poisons the taxpayer pays to clean up.
Oh, I forgot, the Bush Administration and Republican governors already did all that, good for them, that showed them all earth-worshipping eco-geeks what red-blooded America stands for.
Let’s finish the job and annihilate all protected species (especially the ones that look good hanging on the walls of a country estate), outlaw clean air and clean water all together so there is no more whining about such irrelevant matters, clear-cut, mine, drill and bulldoze all national parks and other wasted pristine lands, outlaw all non-chemical and non-GMO foods such as natural and organic products (any individual farmer who cannot compete with a multi-national corporation needs to be eliminated ASAP, I believe Darwin said so), cut off all social programs and close all medical facilities to those socialists who do not have private medical insurance (weaklings cannot expect to get a free ride on the shoulders of the strong and the mighty, that would be unnatural … let’s stick to the fundamentals of conservatism, shall we?).
And why hesitate to do the truly conservative thing and eliminate government completely? Except, of course, for the military, surveillance and intelligence gathering, torture chambers and corporate welfare. Anything else is unnecessary, why would America need a functioning infrastructure when it has the mightiest military in the world, permanent martial law, and the ability to control segments of the population peeved by environmental disasters such as Katrina?
Who are those commie fools who need the government to do everything for them, from the cradle to the grave, like replacing crumbling bridges and paving roads? What’s more important, having the military muscle to impose our will on the entire world or offering a decent education to our children?
It’s no contest, brain is overrated, everybody knows intellectuals are not to be trusted, and let’s be frank, thinking is unpatriotic, in a neo-conservative world of global and permanent war you either submit to conservative military-industrial complex leadership or you are with the enemy.
Raphael Montoliu lives in Lakeport.
- Details
The unthinkable has happened in America. Joe the Plumber, that picture postcard image of a middle class, predominately Protestant, intensely patriotic Anglo-Saxon American – perceiving himself as moral, responsible, and even righteously destined by God to continue in the footprints of his ancestors as a Soldier for God and for the Nation (vigorously defending all its symbols, prejudices, myths and carryover madness) – is being forced to come to grips with the necessity of his own assimilation.
And boy does that scare him and piss him off!
He is faced with daily evidence that the world of his forefathers has passed. He is now represented by a black president, by a Latino female Supreme Court Justice, by 10 states with medical marijuana laws, by a rapidly changing climate conspiracy, by a depletion of natural resources and reduction in the American standard of living, by an economic refutation of laissez-faire capitalism and the collapse of corporate banking and finance, by a rejection of the American martial spirit and a turn toward revitalizing diplomacy, by the survival of Roe vs. Wade, by an increasing acceptance of gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyles and by a burgeoning legion of non-white immigrants bent on realizing the American Dream.
The American Dream has become his nightmare!
The white canvas on which the nation’s portrait was painted has gained color over time, resulting in a hue that can never again be described as white. The generations of Anglo Americans who reveled in their supremacy, in their power, and in their control of the hurtling roller-coaster of technology and progress are now facing a period in which their values, ideals, and aspirations seem to be in the minority – and it is causing them to go slightly mad.
Witness the organized efforts of corporate America to capitalize on this loss of stature and control, encouraging conservatives to stymie the public discourse about health care and health insurance reform at town hall meetings.
Even in the Congress, conservatively fundamental white men are forming secret brotherhoods, adopting and encouraging tactics of intimidation and a distortion of facts in the best of the Third Reich Brown Shirt tradition. The Neocons of the last administration never revealed that most of their tactics for influencing public opinion were first engineered by Goebbels and his henchmen.
Now Republicans have embraced the program wholeheartedly. They seem to believe that just because they can say it publicly and loudly--no matter how far-fetched, how distorted, how fanciful the words are – the untruths are justified and the ends justify the means.
Is that Carl Rove clapping? They are like children imagining that the monsters under their beds have become real. They have co-opted the hysteria of the 1960 – once directed at communists – to stir each other up and convince themselves that this is about freedom and responsibility and not about their loss of control.
Like a child who has been playing with toys by himself, and who is suddenly asked to share and give up control, they prefer to throw a tantrum and break the toys rather than share. Perhaps they are too dense to realize that the tactics being employed by the Republican Party and corporate giants resembles a conspiracy to move the country toward revolution, insurrection, and rebellion. Talk individually to the legions that adhere to the Limbaugh Litany and you hear those words again and again.
They did it to themselves. They encouraged the discussions of how morally superior the American promise was, how anyone could benefit and how all were eligible. They could have spoken with their real voice – that America, founded by whites for whites, didn’t really mean it when they said “melting pot.” In their hearts they never believed it. It was a useful tool to enhance their moral feelings of superiority and racial supremacy, but they never dreamed it might become a reality in their time.
The core of white America is losing its control and is being forced to assimilate into a society full of values and perceptions utterly at odds and foreign to its long-established world view and self-esteem. They are victims of their own propaganda; the myth-becoming-real that America represents a land of new beginnings, welcoming all-comers; a new haven for all the world. That kind of multi-generational open-arms policy during the previous century achieved its purpose but resulted in the inevitable consequences of unpredictable, uncontrollable change.
Yes, the American Dream is moving toward being realized in the countless bloodlines of immigrating peoples; coming here – just as Anglo founding fathers did – to share in a promise of freedom and equality (seldom realized), but always at the forefront of the conversation. Their sheer numbers and the technological changes in communications and awareness have changed the equation.
White America is being forced to follow in the footsteps of the Native Americans they themselves dispossessed; confronting alien attitudes, values, social organization, political policies, even language.
How far will their madness go? For the most part, the majority will respond with restraint – waiting for an opportunity to work within the system for change. But there is a fairly significant fringe being surreptitiously called upon by a few conservative media pundits to heed a covert call intended to stoke desperation and drive them to become a self-proclaimed martyr for traditional America.
Those who know the history of Native peoples in California remember how it was the media, using specific words – much like the words being used today to describe our president and his policies – to enable and encourage the monsters responsible for the most horrific and immoral treatment of human beings possible.
Those words were effective in desensitizing the populace just enough that normal mainstream settlers averted their eyes and allowed a holocaust that normally would have offended their morality, integrity and honor.
Given the American proclivity (even outright glorification) to violence (when adequately rationalized), I fully expect to see this fear and anger at losing their grip on the national reins, resulting in a loss of individual power and racial status, take more overtly racial overtones, and move them further and further toward the fringe belief that only violence, individual or organized, will “save our America.”
Though they perceive the barn burning, the horses have all bolted and there isn’t enough water in the world to put out the fire that is consuming the Anglo Saxon vision of what the United States was, is, and should be.
It is up to their fellow Anglo compatriots to confront them and help them understand that the genie is out of the bottle and will not be put back. As native peoples are told daily – get over it and move on.
I fear they’ll want to sink the ship rather than row together toward some beautiful, albeit unknown, shore.
James BlueWolf is a poet and author. He lives in Nice.
And boy does that scare him and piss him off!
He is faced with daily evidence that the world of his forefathers has passed. He is now represented by a black president, by a Latino female Supreme Court Justice, by 10 states with medical marijuana laws, by a rapidly changing climate conspiracy, by a depletion of natural resources and reduction in the American standard of living, by an economic refutation of laissez-faire capitalism and the collapse of corporate banking and finance, by a rejection of the American martial spirit and a turn toward revitalizing diplomacy, by the survival of Roe vs. Wade, by an increasing acceptance of gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyles and by a burgeoning legion of non-white immigrants bent on realizing the American Dream.
The American Dream has become his nightmare!
The white canvas on which the nation’s portrait was painted has gained color over time, resulting in a hue that can never again be described as white. The generations of Anglo Americans who reveled in their supremacy, in their power, and in their control of the hurtling roller-coaster of technology and progress are now facing a period in which their values, ideals, and aspirations seem to be in the minority – and it is causing them to go slightly mad.
Witness the organized efforts of corporate America to capitalize on this loss of stature and control, encouraging conservatives to stymie the public discourse about health care and health insurance reform at town hall meetings.
Even in the Congress, conservatively fundamental white men are forming secret brotherhoods, adopting and encouraging tactics of intimidation and a distortion of facts in the best of the Third Reich Brown Shirt tradition. The Neocons of the last administration never revealed that most of their tactics for influencing public opinion were first engineered by Goebbels and his henchmen.
Now Republicans have embraced the program wholeheartedly. They seem to believe that just because they can say it publicly and loudly--no matter how far-fetched, how distorted, how fanciful the words are – the untruths are justified and the ends justify the means.
Is that Carl Rove clapping? They are like children imagining that the monsters under their beds have become real. They have co-opted the hysteria of the 1960 – once directed at communists – to stir each other up and convince themselves that this is about freedom and responsibility and not about their loss of control.
Like a child who has been playing with toys by himself, and who is suddenly asked to share and give up control, they prefer to throw a tantrum and break the toys rather than share. Perhaps they are too dense to realize that the tactics being employed by the Republican Party and corporate giants resembles a conspiracy to move the country toward revolution, insurrection, and rebellion. Talk individually to the legions that adhere to the Limbaugh Litany and you hear those words again and again.
They did it to themselves. They encouraged the discussions of how morally superior the American promise was, how anyone could benefit and how all were eligible. They could have spoken with their real voice – that America, founded by whites for whites, didn’t really mean it when they said “melting pot.” In their hearts they never believed it. It was a useful tool to enhance their moral feelings of superiority and racial supremacy, but they never dreamed it might become a reality in their time.
The core of white America is losing its control and is being forced to assimilate into a society full of values and perceptions utterly at odds and foreign to its long-established world view and self-esteem. They are victims of their own propaganda; the myth-becoming-real that America represents a land of new beginnings, welcoming all-comers; a new haven for all the world. That kind of multi-generational open-arms policy during the previous century achieved its purpose but resulted in the inevitable consequences of unpredictable, uncontrollable change.
Yes, the American Dream is moving toward being realized in the countless bloodlines of immigrating peoples; coming here – just as Anglo founding fathers did – to share in a promise of freedom and equality (seldom realized), but always at the forefront of the conversation. Their sheer numbers and the technological changes in communications and awareness have changed the equation.
White America is being forced to follow in the footsteps of the Native Americans they themselves dispossessed; confronting alien attitudes, values, social organization, political policies, even language.
How far will their madness go? For the most part, the majority will respond with restraint – waiting for an opportunity to work within the system for change. But there is a fairly significant fringe being surreptitiously called upon by a few conservative media pundits to heed a covert call intended to stoke desperation and drive them to become a self-proclaimed martyr for traditional America.
Those who know the history of Native peoples in California remember how it was the media, using specific words – much like the words being used today to describe our president and his policies – to enable and encourage the monsters responsible for the most horrific and immoral treatment of human beings possible.
Those words were effective in desensitizing the populace just enough that normal mainstream settlers averted their eyes and allowed a holocaust that normally would have offended their morality, integrity and honor.
Given the American proclivity (even outright glorification) to violence (when adequately rationalized), I fully expect to see this fear and anger at losing their grip on the national reins, resulting in a loss of individual power and racial status, take more overtly racial overtones, and move them further and further toward the fringe belief that only violence, individual or organized, will “save our America.”
Though they perceive the barn burning, the horses have all bolted and there isn’t enough water in the world to put out the fire that is consuming the Anglo Saxon vision of what the United States was, is, and should be.
It is up to their fellow Anglo compatriots to confront them and help them understand that the genie is out of the bottle and will not be put back. As native peoples are told daily – get over it and move on.
I fear they’ll want to sink the ship rather than row together toward some beautiful, albeit unknown, shore.
James BlueWolf is a poet and author. He lives in Nice.
- Details
- Written by: James BlueWolf
How to resolve AdBlock issue?