Fear Nation

My heart goes out to the Muslim family detained from their holiday flight to Orlando on New Year's Day. And my heart aches for what this country has become under 8 years of the Bush propaganda machine: Fear Nation.

Yes 9/11 did happen; it was a horrible attack on our country by al-Qaida. But terrorism's success depends on the reaction to the event. Under Bush, al-Qaida has been highly successful. Going to Afghanistan and crushing Bin Laden and his network there was the right decision -- but we quickly were diverted by right-wing hawks who for years advocated going pre-emptive attacks (which became known as the Bush Doctrine) on whom they termed "rogue nations" and saw Iraq as an opportunity to test their theory. Combined with a president not-too-well versed on the ways of the world, they took advantage, and we have the Iraq quagmire we hope to get out of with the Obama presidency.

Our reaction to 9/11 has led to a perfect-storm victory for al-Qaida: Bin Laden remains free, Iraq is his prime recruiting ground, the US is going into massive debt supporting an unending war (this was the mujahideen's role in taking down the Soviet Union with President Ronald Reagan's help.) The by-product contributes to a nation gripped by fear. GOP politics plays on this, and really has since the 1960's as
Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's New York Times points out. Playing on people's fears of the unknown, the foreign, the "liberals" is all the Republicans have to offer, and they force it home by absurd "terror levels" in the airport, searching random travelers, while our ports -- our real vulnerability -- go totally unprotected. Do we need all of this? Frankly, no. Terror-attack-by-jet was stopped on 9/11 by United Flight 93.

Our culture of fear led to the two teenage girls "reporting" what they thought they overheard in a crowded New Year's Day airport. I imagine if I had a conversation about where the safest place to stay on an airplane with one of you and these girls overheard, they might even have joined the discussion. But when they saw people with darker skin in Muslim dress (read: different from "us") they became alarmed. They reacted as our society has told them to react -- BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID. I just can't wait for the inane new reality TV series "Homeland Security USA," can you?

So while I want to apologize to this American family detained on a holiday trip, I mourn for what this country has become. Whatever happened to "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

Note: The final link is to a video; as a newbie, I don't know how to embed a video into the layout, but will learn soon.

first post

This blog will be my attempt to get back into the practice of writing. I used to do it for a living, and certainly use the skills in my current work. Here you'll find my comments on whatever -- but my true passion in writing is primarily journalistic. Thus, current affairs will take a high priority.

I vow not to let the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush to slide into oblivion. The problems to face the Obama presidency are compounded exponentially by Bush's ideology and the ramifications of putting that ideology into practice. The philosophy of unbridled capitalism has been PROVEN not to work. The human nature toward greed makes regulation imperative.

In future posts, I'll take this to task, as I will the entire charade of the Republican Party being a party for the masses. Folks, the GOP cares only about the the wealthiest of the wealthy. They don't care one bit about the social issues they proclaim -- that is only to get votes. You'll hear a lot about this.

The quandary we find ourselves in with the environment and the future of the human capacity to live on this planet is another passion. Quandary is a quaint term for this problem. In order to move away from the environmental meltdown of the planet, we must consume less. If we consume less, our economy is doomed. The US of A has built its economy on consumption. If we don't buy, use, discard, buy, use, discard, buy, use, discard, etc., our economy crumbles. If we don't stop buying, using, discarding, our planet crumbles. Gotta find a happy medium -- and better ways of consuming.

I'm sure to write about my family, my beautiful wife MC, and our absolutely magical lives together. We have two litter mate labrador retrievers -- Jake (black) and Wheeler (yellow, a Dudley actually) -- and they keep us busy to say the least. We have an easy-going cat, Blue, who is brown with blue eyes. I have two children from a previous marriage -- L, a daughter in her senior year at TCU and D, a son soon to graduate from high school. They live in Texas, as do my parents and a sister and her family. My brother and his family live in Nebraska.

That is enough for now. Peace, and Happy New Year!