For the Power and the Glory

If one keeps one’s ear to the ground about American politics lately one can see very clearly the vast chasm of differences in people’s beliefs about what is really going on. Some people believe very deeply in what the President is doing to make our country safe. They believe that this world is not yet ready for world peace.

There are so many factions that make the world an unstable place.
Like the religious faction.
Many in the world and in certain countries are stuck in the thirteenth century and many in those same countries are more than ready for the twenty first century. Of course I am talking about the Arab world. There is so much unrest and stress in the Arab world and only a small part is directed at the west. It’s religious struggle to retain domination. Families are being torn apart over their religion and traditions. Many are embracing new ideas of democracy and freedom. They like he idea of women being treated equally and not like possessions. These countries have been made up of mostly of religious leaders for thousands of years and are struggling toward democracy and the twenty first century. A statement by GW Bush recently was, ‘Democracy’s don’t war on each other.’ So we encourage democracies.

Then there is another front for us to face or turn away, the power faction.
There are world leaders that are kings, dictators, and falsely elected leaders, military leaders that over through the elected leaders. There are all kinds of power grabbing bullies that rule over millions of people without the peoples support just for the sake of power. They don’t care about religion, or their people they just revel in the power that leadership brings. Millions of their people starve, have no work, nor economy. They are murdered at the whim of the leader.

How about the glory faction what do we do here?. Arafat was a glory faction. He kept his grip on the revolution by fomenting his people’s hatred for the Jews. Like Castro’s passion for Communistic socialism he has kept the revolution alive to stay on as the head of state. Castro doesn’t make war on his neighbors and he certainly isn’t rich so it must be for the glory of making his people listen to his four hour speech’s. Kim of North Korea is in it for the glory and the power as well, the glory of besting his father in cruelty and the power of nuclear weapons while millions of his people starve to death.

Our leader is in it for history. The political opponents of GW Bush believe he has made a terrible mistake in invading Iraq and history will prove them correct.
There are people in this country and around the world that believe America should stay out of other people’s business. I think that they believe Bush is simply a liar and a bully and they no matter what is said or done by this administration it will be remembered as the administration that started a war. What began as a war to stop the threat of WMD’s escalated into the War On Terror and they blame GW Bush. What started as a war to avenge the victims of 9/11 moved into uncovering a seething group of religious fanatics that are willing to do anything to return the entire world to the thirteenth century

In the final analysis appointing two conservative justices to the Supreme Court will be one of the more important legacies Mr. Bush will enjoy. And the war on terror, a long decades war, but one I believe we must win for our own survival. President Bush was first to recognize the danger and how important it is for us to win this war on terror, and to drag a great portion of the world, one we greatly depend on for our security and way of life into the twenty first century. He also recognized the very urgent need to reform Social Security with private accounts. He will be recognized as a truly visionary leader if not inspirational leader. He is not in for the power, or the money, or for his religion, or for the glory.

He is in it because we chose him.

The World Needs Anger Management

Ever notice how much hate and anger there is in the world?
“I hate smokers, You make me so angry I could shoot somebody, don’t you just hate it when they do that? We’ve all heard those benign quotes that have entered, over time, our everyday vernacular. What’s new and more troublesome is our low regard for public officials, lawyers, and the law. It’s of concern, or should be, to hear such anger among the populous.
“I hate what he’s done to the country,”
“I hate where the country is going.”
“I hate it when he lies about the WMD’s.”
“I get so mad when I see where his Christian agenda is taking over the courts.”

The other side is no better.
“I hate it when people call him a liar.”
“I hate it when liberals distort the facts.”
‘I hate’ seems to be a world wide common theme of late. There seems to be no ebb in sight. Unrest around the world is growing at a dangerous pace. Everyone seems guilty of hating something or somebody and usually it's someone or something they’ve never even come in contact with, except via the media.

The Arabs hate Israeli’s. Half of Africa hates the other half and there are people in Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East that actually and actively hate Americans.
Radical Muslims hate everybody. Everybody hates Osama, Saddam, and the bomb. Many Americans hate Muslims, Hispanics, blacks and whites. There are those that hate abortions, abortionists, bible thumpers, melting ice, and leaders of women’s rights. They hate gas guzzling cars, and wasted trips to Mars. And everybody is angry about one side of an issue or the other. It’s not enough just to debate an issue, we have to dredge up anger and hate to effectively make a point.

The New York Yankees are the Evil Empire, they are the hated rivals of the Red Sox. Sports writers refer to the fans as angry mobs. Sport writers used to be content with ‘cross town rivals’ or ‘passionate fans’ now it’s the ‘hated Yankees’ or the ‘bitter rivalry between the two cities of Boston and New York". Fans jump out of the stands and angrily beat up players and coaches and angrily throw $5.00 cups of beer at players. They must be angry to throw away a good cold Budweiser. In Basketball, and Soccer we have incidents of players climbing into the stands to beat up fans. What’s going on? Sports writers love it when they have a fight story they can milk for weeks or months. Can you imagine if a fan or a ballplayer were actually killed over their passion for the game. How long would that story would last on the sports pages or ESPN? Months? Wow, a sports writers dream.
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Our cable and radio news shows have followed the sports writers lead by imbuing hate in their articles about political debates, politicians statements, religion, abortion, schools, governments, taxes, the courts and any issue in general needing to be spiced or heated up. Politicians too inject anger during their thirty second sound bites when a camera and mike is thrown in their face. They know what gets the constituents attention when a camera is on them. Anger and Hate. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam, and now Muslim Mullahs were and are masters at spewing hate and anger. They knew and know what gets their audiences attention and keeps it.

World wide media too cleverly inject volatile and provocative words to spice up their stories, words that can change a news story into an editorial, words like; combative, contentious, strained, bitter, threaten, emotional, tension, nervous, caustic, terror, heated, angry, riotous. Reporters find they need these adjectives as crutches to beef up otherwise dull or boring stories, or make exciting stories even spicier.

Headline seeking news shock shows on TV need scare tactics to get attention and they need anger and hate to keep it going. The long popular use of scare tactics can work only for so long. Take today for example, we aren’t as scared of the radical terrorist as we are of the neighborhood child molester. After we get bored with the child molester stories the media will revive the stories by creating a need for us to hate the molester. How long now has the cable news show, The O’Reilly Factor been angry at the judges who give a break to child molesters? O’Reilly has been milking that story for months, like a personal crusade. But he needs us to be angry so we will continue to follow his story. He has the number one cable news show so anger must be working.

People know more about how to hate and be angry than how to scare people or be happy. They know how to hate the neighbors barking dog or the yowling stray cats in their back yard more than they can stay scared of Osama bin Laden. Seeing repeated pictures of OBL walking around some remote mountain in Afghanistan and doesn’t look so scary but we can hate him when we think about how he is responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans and Arabs.

So this month, instead of hating the French, or the industrious Chinese, lets all hate Arabs, especially those from Dubai because they must be Muslim terrorists or their brothers are and the media and Politicians have taught us how to be angry at them.

Of course, Dubai companies service over 500 of our Naval ships yearly and the Navy isn’t scared of them nor do they hate them. The Navy certainly isn’t angry like some politicians are about the prospects of Dubai taking over the operation of some of our ports but that doesn’t make for a good news story because it not hateful enough. So the Navy's opinion is dismissed.
Maybe the politicians are angry at Dubai because they need attention.

I hate it when I get so angry with all these people being so angry. Everyone should take an anger management class. I noticed that there was no such thing a decade ago.