ISIS, Apocalypse, Armageddon, and the "End Times": Why Judeochrislam Is The Evil That Could Kill Us All

It's been a while what with all that's been going on in my life, but here are a few thoughts on ISIS, religion, and the "end times":


To those people who said, and to those who continue to say, that recognizing that ISIS isn't the same creature that we've dealt with in Al Qaeda is saber rattling or warmongering, what do you think after all of these execution videos? Still think that? I hope not.

Here's another good piece that helps understand the language behind ISIS's actions. That's key to fully comprehending their intentions.

But let's also be frank about what this - radical Islam - really is: It's merely one face of the violence inherent in religion. Christians use others to do their dirty work for them. Jews will do their own, as they're doing in Gaza. ISIS is the best-known, most-radical faction of Islam we've seen so far.

There's a movement afoot to reconcile Roman Catholicism with Eastern Orthodoxy. There are synthetic amalgamations of Judaism and Protestantism. All of these "Abrahamic" religions, when you're on the outside looking in, are far more alike than unalike. I could easily see the day when they all pitch in together and try to bring about the apocalypse or Armageddon or whatever.

If we kick the stool out from under Islam, whatever's left of it will try to find syncretism with the other two branches of Judeochrislam, and for everyone else, that's when the game is going to get nasty, if it hasn't already reached that point prior to that moment. Ultimately, they all want to bring about the "end times" so that whichever savior or combination of savior and prophet can come take them to...The Great Walmart in the Sky, or whatever.

It's time to stop viewing these religions as separate. It's time we come to terms with the fact that they're merely branches of the same core belief, and that the only things they really disagree on are pretty minor.

That's going to be an Oh, Shit! day for the rest of us, especially if any faction among them hates whatever you or I might be that offends them.

We might want to start thinking about that day because who, even a year ago, saw ISIS coming?

Luckier Than Most: 67 People Own More Wealth Than the Bottom 3.5 BILLION Earthlings

"The 67 People As Wealthy As The World's Poorest 3.5 Billion" - link to Forbes article


67 people own more wealth than half the planet's population. 

Imagine what the average quality of life would be if that wealth were more equally distributed.

No one needs even ONE billion dollars. But if our system had a cap so that a person had to divest his wealth after hitting that, or even better, restructure the cost of his goods or services and increase the rate he paid his workers, then equality would be more even.

There will come a day when humans are no longer required to work. When that day comes, and it's approaching far faster than most people think - it won't happen in my lifetime, but it might in some of yours - then humans will by necessity have to be taken care of. 

To achieve that goal, there are two probable routes. One is to allow the status quo to remain, and see the rise of an Elysium type world where the UHNWIs ( link to Wikipedia UHNWI article ) own everything and the poor get the scraps of what's left over, having to fight for it in a Hunger Games world, or worse. 


But the other route is more Star Trekesque: A world where people are freed from the drudgery of a 9-5 or even worse, a hot, hazardous job of rote work monotony that takes its toll on the collective human psyche, erasing creativity and dulling the senses. 

Imagine a world where people are free to pursue intellectual goals that benefit humankind. There will always be those who scoff, but just a hundred years ago, the assembly line wasn't created, computer technology didn't exist, and women didn't have the right to vote (and still don't in some places). 

Reality will probably play out somewhere between the two, but what might drive us as a race will be the climate change that we ourselves have set into motion. We may need every human who can to work on solving the problem while our automation builds, farms, and does the menial work now done by...well, in the US...immigrants. 

I'd rather see a world closer to Star Trek than Elysium. But the 67 billionaires I cited earlier will fight that tooth and nail, as will other UHNWIs.

I count myself luckier than most, but I'll still fight for better. For everyone.

A Path To Our Republic's Future - Learning To Pull As One

We were taught, and we taught our children, that individualism is the highest form of freedom, but we failed to learn the lessons that our parents and grandparents learned from the Great Depression and two World Wars, times that brought the republic together through national service, much of which was in the military.

We've forgotten that the infrastructural backbone of our nation was built in part by the CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps. The Corps built roads where none previously existed, bridges that span our nation's waterways and chasms, and the built-to-last structures we see in our National Parks and National Forests. Along the way, people learned trades that served them well the rest of their lives, they helped build the engine which powered America's greatest growth boom, and they often made friends for life serving alongside their fellows. They learned to pull together rather than pull apart.

I envision a modern CCC wherein every able-bodied citizen - and I consider many who are deemed 'disabled' to be able to help as they may - serves 1-2 years depending on job skills and possibly the ability to "re-enlist" for 1 term of 1-2 years, all of whom help our republic recover from the deeply-damaging Great Recession. I see Conservants help to rebuild our parks, roads, and bridges, and help lay a network of fiber optic trunks and dark fiber that will continue to serve us long into the future. I see them helping lay tens of thousands of miles of underground power cable, bringing electricity from the great wind farms of the Midwest and West to our cities and rural areas not capable of generating enough wind energy to meet their own needs. I see them building solar collection farms. I see them helping to clean up toxic waste dumps. I see Conservants laying the bricks and mortar on new government buildings built in a grand fashion to last rather than the brick-facade, steel building, temporary structures we now see. These would be monuments to the CCC's past and future accomplishments, built in a manner that will allow them to be flexible for future remodeling and which will stand to remind us that universal service is a boon for our society.

We see the path that crass commercialism, rampant runaway capitalism, and mass consumption has taken us down, all of what we've wrought being the result of individualism. A new CCC would again show us what the value of teamwork can accomplish. It would show us that it's far better to get to know our neighbors than to remain fearful of them through our ignorance. And a new CCC would elevate our republic back to the top spot among nations, not through idle boast, but through the quiet acknowledgement that comes from one's peers at a job well done. We would again achieve a status worth emulation rather than revulsion, and would do so by means of care and tender concern for that we love rather than ugly show of force abroad.

Our republic still reels under the staggering weight of the Great Recession, an economic kill switch on our future unless we rewire our way of thinking. We need a boost from within rather than a loan from without. The time has come for us to return to a program whose grand achievements still stand as reminders of what we can do when we pull as one.

Veterans' Worst Problem - The loss of the One

On Being a Part of One: Memorial Day 2012

I have an idea for helping veterans that I feel, as a veteran, would benefit many of those returning from our multiple wars, those who have already returned, and those who will do so in the future. It's my considered opinion that the problem so many who seek to understand the issue overlook is that returning vets are no longer surrounded by people who have the same sort of experiences. Returning injured veterans miss the companionship of their sisters- and brothers-in-arms. What they lack, what they need, what they want, we can give them for probably no more, or at least very little more, than we currently spend. So what's the solution? Veterans' Villages. Allow me to explain.

From the moment you enter initial reception in the military, you become part of a greater One. Your One might be the US Army, the US Navy, the US Coast Guard, the US Air Force, or the USMC. It doesn't matter which One you belong to, what matters is that you are there to become an integral part of One. That One will stay with you from the first frightening days where nothing is familiar and people with funny hats scream at you and make you do pushups. Your personal One might make you swab decks, eat sand, pretend to fly, crawl through mud, or any silly thing one can imagine that 99% of the population wouldn't do. But what your One is really doing is to mold you into a functioning, capable, highly-skilled Warfighter, a part of One.

You'll always want to be part of One, but when you leave your service, your One has to focus on the new players in order to create your replacement, so you feel left out in the cold. Your One has abandoned you, in your way of thinking, and you feel bereft of your One's special attention.

For those Warfighters who return broken, physically, mentally, or emotionally, their One has to keep its sights on the enemy and sometimes forgets to shine its warm, beatific smile in your direction. Sure, you have "family" - those people who brought you into the world, who reared you, fed you, clothed you, educated you, and either supported or didn't your decision to leave them in order to serve your nation and become part of One. But your FAMILY is still Over There, some working hard to purchase the freedom that everyone who lives in the free world enjoys. The same freedom that you purchased with your blood, your sweat, your fear, and your nightmares. When you were sent back to the States, you left the only real FAMILY you've ever felt truly, really, wholly connected to. This in no way diminishes your love for your "family", and they often have trouble understanding this because they haven't been Over There with their FAMILY, facing death, dismemberment, pain, worry, fatigue, scorching heat, biting cold, bitter drink and insipid food. You try to tell them, but they Just Don't Get It, and they never will. Inside, deep inside, you know this, too. Your One deserted you. Your One turned its back on you. You feel the anguish and sorrow for those you LOVE who are still Over There. You miss them, and NOT A DAMNED SOUL at "home" understands why you want to leave your "family" and "home" and go HOME to your FAMILY. More importantly, you can't talk to anyone about it because you spent Eternity Over There with it bottled up, maybe letting out a bit to your battle buddy, but never being able to spill it out because that's a sign of cowardice and you'll damned sure walk out in front of a speeding vehicle rather than let your friends see it. Because that's the ultimate act of cowardice, in your way of thinking - showing the fear that you all have in front of your FAMILY.

You're "home". You're scared, not for yourself, but for both your "family" and your FAMILY. You're afraid someone in your "family" will set you off or see you confronting the demons that are issued to everyone returning from Over There as a Thank-You gift from your Grateful Nation. You're afraid you'll hurt someone at "home". You're afraid that the new guy Over There just doesn't know how to Do It Right and someone will get hurt; someone whom you love and have been through the gates of Hell with. Because that person is your touchstone, your One.


Veterans' Villages

The missing link is togetherness, as in "live togetherness", just as you did when you were part of your One. I got ya. I read you five-by. I think I know just what you need, because I could damn sure use a little bit of it myself. We need a way to stay part of a One, maybe not the old One, but a new One, just like changing duty stations. Surrounded by people just like me. A new FAMILY, some of whom are almost certainly part of my old FAMILY.

I propose that our Grateful Nation set aside funds to purchase land. Perhaps generous land owners (spurred on by tax incentives) would donate some or part it. This land would be used to create Veterans' Villages, each with a different climate, some located in lush mountains, some in the plains, maybe a few near the beach. It doesn't have to be prime real estate. Hell, not many of the places we've been stationed are prime real estate. Give us a couple hundred acres. Let us help build it, even. Hey, we'll even stay in tents until we get our permanent homes built. The work and comradery will keep our minds and hands busy. We'll build new friendships and probably even have a few of the old ones right next to us. Most importantly, we'll get our One back.

We will build Veterans' Villages with a mix of multi-unit housing and Tiny Houses. The multi-unit housing will allow those who don't want the lawn and solidarity to live right among their friends. Each will have a day room and a TV room, just like back HOME, maybe a community kitchen, and every veteran will have her or his own small, studio apartment. Severely disabled veterans could all be given ground floor residences which might be built for wheelchairs and mobility-assistance clearances. Facilities maintenance would be done by veteran employees who live right there in the Village.

The Tiny Houses are another thing altogether. Small - 250-400sq ft -, tidy, inexpensive, each with a small tract of yard, just enough for a little garden and a flower bed. For those of us who need to get our hands dirty in the soil. Some of these Tiny Houses might be made from recycled steel shipping containers of the sort used aboard ships and then dropped onto the backs of tractor-trailers for deliveries before being loaded up and sent back. I've seen some fantastic living spaces made from them, and they're virtually storm-proof (maybe veteran proof, too!) I've also seen them made from old railroad boxcars. The point is, we veterans would be willing to be pioneers in the field of Tiny Houses and might be able to be the cutting-edge in it. First we learn from the Tiny House experts how to build them. Then we live in them. Then we teach others in communities all over the country where people seek to downsize. There are so many possibilities for veterans to give back, once again.

We will have community gardens, also. The soil under my nails is a powerful pain reliever and curative. The fruit of my labors - squash, tomatoes, peppers, herbs - feed me and taste twice as good as the best I've ever had before.

The VA could establish clinics in our Villages; clinics we will build ourselves. Talk about a captive audience for the VA medical corps for improved communication and monitoring of routine and preventive care... We could have community 'canteens' - cafeterias - staffed wholly by veterans where residents could get 3 nutritious meals a day at no or low cost. These meals might be paid for from the same source of funds currently used to provide low-income and homeless veterans with Food Stamps. I'm sure that the appropriate modifications to the program could be managed if the will is there.

We will have our own stores, maybe owned by the nearby community, but staffed by vets. We will have jobs, some right here in the Village, others in the nearby communities, but we should always be mindful to prevent taking local jobs from those who the Villages get sited near. MPs who live among us might be our Village cops, and former military cooks would work in and even run our eateries, if they chose to. With the broad spectrum of skills brought to the Village by veterans, the Village might become the best resource for local communities for technology needs, or perhaps just day labor. Some might even go on to own businesses in the Villages, a situation where they could move on and free up space for a new vet. Who better to understand what we're going through than those who already have experience in dealing with us and who are part of our new One?

We will have picnics, BBQs, outtings. And of course we'll have counsellors on hand, again perhaps those who have Been There, Done That and TRULY understand what we're going through. I don't trust Mr Former War Protester Turned Counsellor with my feelings, but I can trust Mr Former Grunt because he can SEE my demons...because they're his, too.

Our friends from "home" can come see us, see how we live, see our progress. Our goal is to move back to be with our "families", but we understand that if things get really bad, we're always welcome HOME to our FAMILY, here at the Vets' Village.

There will be rules, there always are. There will be counselling. There will be Smart Recovery, AA, NA, and any other appropriate group organization. But this won't be a group home where you're treated like a kid in detention. You'll be treated like an adult here, respected for what you've done for your Nation, Grateful or not.

Our One will be open to any of the 1% who have served. We will make every effort to pay our own way, perhaps through a higher payroll tax, perhaps through community services that we can render that aren't deemed profitable for businesses. Cleaning and restoring our Nation's National Parks, State Parks, building and restoring playgrounds for kids and critical infrastructure, all of the sorts of things that help US as well as helping the U.S., for we're still patriots, and we have proved it, but damned sure don't mind keeping at it!

We don't want a handout, but the country is throwing handfuls of cash at problems without results. This is a program that will help because it addresses our problems in holistic methods. You can't bandaid our problems, and our core problem is that we need our One. Kids from every background enter the military at an early age and in doing so, many miss the life lessons learned by those who have the advantage of stable home lives or the college experience. Those kids are now blooded adults and changing the patterns of their lives is difficult, or even impossible.


For our leaders, I ask you to have your staffs look at this issue carefully. Parse the fine print in the reports concerning vets too and you'll see that the overarching issue is addressed with this program. Have your staffs do the math. Take a look at the money we're throwing down the toilet, especially in this economic slump. Remember that building the Villages is a one-time expense and that we veterans can supply most - or perhaps all - of the necessary labor. Yes, there will be a need for planners, architects, and contractors, but those costs could be offset by offering tax incentives for pro bono services. For that matter, there's the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy Seabees who might lend engineering expertise, possibly even heavy equipment.

And repeat this mantra until you BELIEVE it:  This is NOT a partisan issue!

Veterans already receive pensions for disabilities and some draw retirement pay. This money will provide many veterans with the income they need if they don't have to pay rent, or if their rent is subsidized by a Section 8 type program. Again, look at how much the VA already spends to get homeless vets off the streets. This is a much more permanent solution. While you're doing the math, make sure you include money spent on older or disabled veterans by the Federal government, state governments, and local governments for home modifications, energy assistance, food, and so forth. Count all of it. Don't short us - we didn't short you.

Yes, there will be a need for several of these across the country. I highly suggest to place them in locations that will promote serenity. The US has public lands all over the country that could be used for this, however I don't think that a location so remote as to be difficult to reach would be wise, either. Here are a few locations that come to mind for Villages, all within 1 hour or less of a major VAMC:
a) Clarks Hill Lake (J Strom Thurmond Lake) on the Georgia-South Carolina state line near Augusta, Georgia. (VAMC in Augusta)
b) Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington state line near Portland, Oregon. (VAMC in Portland)
c) Santa Fe River or Payne's Prairie near Gainesville, Florida. (VAMC in Gainesville)
d) Texas Hill Country near San Antonio, Texas. (VAMC in San Antonio)
Of course, there are many other locations within 1 hour of a VAMC, too.

There are military bases being closed under BRAC that might be perfect for this plan, already containing barracks that might be modified for use by veterans. We wouldn't even need the whole base, in most cases, just a few acres, buildings or no.

The primary advantages I see from this are these:
1) Permanent homes for those veterans at the greatest risk;
2) Transitional housing for other veterans to give them a 'decompression period' before returning to their "families";
3) A long-term solution to veterans' real problems by concentrating them in a single location easily reached by VA medical, therapeutic, and counselling staffs (perhaps a siting requirement might be to look for Village sites within, say, 30 minutes to 1 hour of a VAMC such that the VAMC doctors and staffs could make Village clinic visits to see their patients rather than having groups of veterans make the trip to the VAMC for routine care and checkups;
4) Having a community of highly trained, motivated, and skilled workers available for local businesses to draw from;
5) Having a community of highly trained, motivated, and skilled volunteers who would work to improve or build projects deemed unprofitable for local businesses to tackle, like parks and playgrounds, or which local government can't afford;
 6) Having a community of volunteers who could be used for civil emergencies like floods, fires, or storms, equipped by the appropriate local or regional agency.


I'm well aware how many veterans are currently serving and have served since the Gulf War. The intent of this program would not be to try to house every returning veteran in a Village. This program would be designed to reach out to those in greatest need - homeless veterans, those who wish to harm themselves, those who wish to harm others, or those whose substance abuse problems can't be rectified by a simple AA meeting. The Veterans' Village project might serve as a diversionary program in lieu of incarceration, either long- or short-term, and could include provisions such as checking in with Village police, wearing monitoring equipment, and/or public service as recompense, et cetera.

The whole point of the program is to help veterans of any age, conflict or peacetime, problem, issue, health concern, race, gender, or rank return to civilian life with the tools to lead a happy, productive life. Where that fails, to give them a HOME that they will never have to fear losing. Simply having that, a home, would assuage so much of the pain of loss that damaged veterans experience - loss of FAMILY, loss of "family", loss of "home", loss of HOME, loss of their best friends, many of whom they watched die before their eyes and which trauma is daily visited upon them by the demons who tell them that their friend's death is their fault.

If we want to FIX the problems that so many veterans have, it will take a national effort and a holistic approach. The VA can't do it alone, states aren't financially able to help, and the private sector hasn't fully recovered, but each can do what they can, and that will be enough to make this program work if our leaders have the same resolve that the veterans had which drove them through their service and through conflict, only to return home  to a 'Grateful Nation'.

This is a holistic approach to veterans' problems resulting in helping veterans rejoin their One. It's an approach which takes the burden of carrying so much of the financial cost of long-term veteran care off the backs off working Americans and puts it in the hands of veterans who want to pay their own way, as much as they can.

Alcoholics Anonymous has an apt saying that pertains to this: "Half measures availed us nothing".

Exactly.


Jim Chatman
Veteran - Georgia

Income parity and class war

Patriot Day 2011 - I've been sitting here this morning watching the coverage of the sad reminder of the first attack by an alien force on the sovereign territory of the United States since Pearl Harbor. I spent 13 years in the military, in service to my homeland. I had an odd journey through the military, beginning as an enlisted infantryman in my state's National Guard, going on to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and a commission in the Infantry. After 5 years, I had the opportunity to move to the Army Reserve in a teaching position, then after my full 6 years were up, into the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). But I wasn't done, I wanted a tour in the Regular Army, so I again enlisted rather than seeking to have my commission reinstated because I wanted to choose where I went and what I did. Young officers usually have no choice in the matter, but because of enlistment guarantees, and a generous bonus, I was allowed to choose my first duty station as an enlistee. Throughout my career, I raised my right hand and swore to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, a total of 5 times, and I still hold myself to that sacred oath. 


And that's what I was thinking about this morning as I watched the sun rise over Manhattan. We're faced with threats from without and threats from within. At least the external threats are known: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, others who wish harm on our citizens. The internal threats are far harder to sound because they come from us, from the body America. 


But we can, if we remove the blinders from our eyes which prevent us from seeing the immediate and familiar, suss out the cancer which gnaws us root and bone. It can be a challenge, an agony, because the enemy, we're told, should be our paradigm. Our internal national enemy is the disparity between the super rich and the rest of us. 


Greed in any form is bad. Amazingly though, we've been told that it's good to be greedy. It's a noble purpose to seek wealth. Increasingly we're told that charity is bad. During the GOP Presidential debate, last week, several candidates came right out and said that we need to cut off assistance to those who need it, that charity causes poverty. Jesus said that, right? One would imagine that he did, or at least these characters think so, since each and every one claims to be a staunch Christian, to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, and to accept him as their personal savior. Or were they lying for the sake of political expediency? 


I was reared as a Jehovah's Witness. Trust me, it's a cult, regardless that they protest to the contrary. But one thing that you can't take away from them - they study the bible. Evangelicals and other Christian Fundamentalists claim that Witnesses don't use the right bible, but the fact is that the Jehovah's Witness' 'New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures', the bible that they had translated using the newly-found Rosetta Stone as a translation guide, something that all other bible translators are now doing, is a much more accurate translation than the problematic King James Version. 


Growing up in that religion, I read the bible. Actually read it twice from cover to cover, and probably a third and fourth time by chapter and verse. Jehovah's Witnesses read their bible regularly, they read it to understand it and not just be able to quote by rote. They have certainly misinterpreted it, but it is a modern translation in modern English and any reader should be able to understand it clearly, unlike the poorly translated KJV. 


Having read it and studied it, even though today I am an atheist, I have a pretty good grasp of what it was that Jesus was trying to teach his disciples. Recurring themes were love, forgiveness, and charity. Nowhere I read of his teachings did it mention greed, wealth, or revenge, but you wouldn't know it from his modern followers. In fact, greed, wealth, and revenge seem to be their bywords, their mantra, their New Ideal.  I can't purport to know why his followers have missed the message, but I have some ideas. 


First and foremost is ignorance. Agreed, I'm rusty on the bible's specifics today, even though I still get the general gist. But so many who claim Jesus as their savior haven't really bothered to read his teachings. Instead, they keep a bible by their bed and they read a few passages late at night after they're already drowsy, they take them out of context because they don't bother to read entire stories or chapters and they soon forget the morals of the stories if indeed they even understood them anyway. It's alarming how many think that popular sayings like 'A penny saved is a penny earned' come from the bible rather than from popular folklore. So I suppose it should be no surprise that these people sit in a building at least once a week and listen to their religious leaders tell them what to think. It's the very definition of propaganda. Tell a story (or lie), keep telling it, keep swearing to its truth, and if anyone should question you about it, scream it...because SCREAMING ALWAYS PROVES YOUR VERACITY...RIGHT?


Of course not. But it's a tool they use. And that's part of my second point - propaganda. Adolf Hitler and his henchman Joseph Goebbels, his Reich Minister of Propaganda, were masters of the Big Lie. They believed that for a lie to be believable, it needs to be a big lie, it needs to be repeated, and it needs to grossly distort the truth. 

The coming, and necessary, Class War

Here in America, we tend to view things in an 'Us' versus 'Them' scenario, but the time has come for us to take a step back and realize that the lessons learned from people other than Americans needn't be reinvented by us. We can look to see what they've learned, what they've done right, what they've done wrong, and try to avoid the pitfalls that befell them.


In the Spring of 2011, the simmering pot which has been the Arab world boiled over. The "Arab Spring", as it's been dubbed, saw the overthrow of dictator after despot, continuing right on through the late summer. While it's still too early to tell what outcome this will have on the citizenry of each newly-freed country, the mandate of the people in revolt was heard 'round the world...and it was even heard here, in America. Here, in the Bible Belt. Here, in Georgia. And it's Georgia, specifically, that I want to concentrate on. 


My family moved from Florida in 1972 and resettled in Coffee County in central southeast Georgia. Coffee County is primarily an agricultural area with a focus on poultry production, soybeans, tobacco, and cotton. It's located in what I refer to as the Interstate Quadrangle, a chunk of remoteness bordered by I-16 to the north, I-95 to the east, I-10 to the south, and I-75 to the west. The Interstate Quadrangle includes a slice of far north Florida from Jacksonville in the southeast corner to about Lake City in the southwest. It's northern corners are Macon in the northwest, and Savannah in the northeast. Within the boundaries of the Interstate Quadrangle lie some of the most remote areas in the Atlantic coastal states. It's also one of the least densely populated areas in those same states. There are no large cities, nor even large towns beyond those on the corners. In short, it's an area that has had little direct outside influence, and that lack shows every day in how those of means think about those without. You would be hard pressed to find an upper-middle income or upper income person in that area, and that majorly means white, who doesn't daily use the N-word, or who doesn't look down on those of us educated in public schools as "public school trash" as one business owner in that area puts it. Of course, she has had the benefit of a religious private school education as have her children. Or the business owner whose business is predicated primarily upon serving Medicare recipients with home health products who tries to ram  products he can profit from most down the throats of those least capable of protesting rather than working to ensure proper fit and match of products to the clients. He tried to do that to my mother. It didn't work, and he's angry, threatening to charge her for something she can't use. He'll be answering to Medicare for that gaffe. 


In the 26 August 2011 New York Times, Georgia Congressman John Lewis (D), has an article entitled 'A Poll Tax By Another Name', in which he discusses, from his deeply experienced point of view, how even today conservatives scheme to prevent African-American and Latino voters from voting, disenfranchising anyone that they feel might be a threat to their stranglehold on power. John Lewis was a leader of the civil rights movement in America, and one of the few dedicated people left in Congress who truly represents the will of the people, especially those who lack the voice to speak for themselves. John Lewis is a living American hero.


While Congressman Lewis' article focused on the Civil Rights Act as well as other playing field-leveling legislation and the impact these have had on the lives of African-Americans, it also warns us that those who hold power over the lives and livelihoods of others will go to any extreme to hold onto that power. This prejudice affects anyone who hasn't the financial wherewithal to fight back, to stand toe-to-toe with those who seek to oppress rather than liberate. This affects almost half of all Americans. As late as April of 2011, less than 46% of Americans had jobs, and that number is likely to have decreased, not increased. 


In early-Twenty-first-century America, money is power. True, that's always been the case, but with so many wealthy Americans now, the disenfranchisement of the poor and the dichotomy of wealth disparity puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a meaningful, living-wage job. Nepotism and cronyism are the new rules-of-the-day. Those who consider themselves to be of a certain social stratum look down at the poor and loathe them, often publicly. Case in point, Fox News' recent campaign targeting the poor and unemployed. Fox commentator, Neil Cavuto, cited a figure which showed that 99.6% of the "poor" (Fox's quotation marks, not mine) have refrigerators, and the list went on showing that certain members of the "poor" have a few modern conveniences or even small luxuries. Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs, both notoriously snobbish towards the poor and bottom-tier-working-class people, went on to hash out how they really didn't look down on the poor but they clearly didn't grasp how a poor person might own a refrigerator or cell phone, and even compared them to the poor in Europe. Which made me laugh because I've lived in Europe and never did I see the squalor that can be found here in America.  


And here's the Big Picture: It's still 'Us' versus 'Them', except now the two sides are Wealthy versus Poor. How do those who have not compete with those who have? It's hard to do...unless we look at recent examples abroad. Maybe they have it right, those who stood up for their rights in the Arab Spring. While the riots in Britain turned violent and vandals took the reins, it began as a protest for economic rights. A protest for rights for those who have been disenfranchised. The street hoodlums in Britain had it all wrong, vandalism is never an acceptable answer.  


Whatever non-destructive form that answer has to take, it's time has come. One would hope that parties representing both sides could sit down diplomatically and discuss the problems, work out a solution, and everything would move apace towards equality. But our own politicians can't do that amongst themselves, so what hope do the rest of us have for that? Right now, there is a political party that has a wing bent on enriching the already enriched while the rest go without. And don't think that they feel remorse for the plight of the needy, because if they did, they would've already done something. 


Ask yourself this, though; if these people are truly the patriots they claim to be, why do we have so many homeless veterans, and why are the same "patriots" calling for cutting veterans' benefits? In fact, why is it that so few of THEM are veterans? The nation already puts many of the 1% of those who serve into the poverty category WHILE they're serving, but now the ones who have most profited from staying behind while true patriots served their nation are the staunchest supporters of cutting veterans' already-meager benefits. Used and thrown away. It's shameful. But they have no shame. None. They'll simply pray the shame away and after that 2-second prayer, they'll go right back to the same behavior as before it.


THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE UNLESS WE CHANGE IT OURSELVES!


Freedom isn't free; it's paid for in blood. Everyone is faced with life and death decisions, but some employ others to make those decisions for them. The time has come for those who have been disenfranchised, those who have served, those who are made to feel like second-class citizens in their own country, those whose skin color or religion is deemed deficient by the monied...the time has come for them to stand up and say no to that behavior. 


I find it no surprise that John Lewis is a Georgian. He's a fighter, and he's a winner. I aim to be like him.