the truth is almost always dirty.

We have all been listening to it for the better part of a week now - that is, comments about John Kerry's "botched joke." We all know what he said, and any American with half a brain knows what he meant. And honestly, all of it is really starting to piss me off.

It was a joke aimed at the President of the United States (who'se name is George W. Bush, for those of you who don't follow current events). Our current President is a person who did not "study hard," "do [his] homework," or "make an effort to be smart," therefore he (George Bush) got "stuck in Iraq." I actually think it's a pretty funny joke. George W was a "D Student," always just scraping by. It's no wonder he bankrupted Texas as governor, and is currently in the business of bankrupting the United States with his bad policies and his endless, illogical war. That was the premise of the "botched joke" that republicans are attempting to blindside the democrats with in the final sprint of the congressional/senatorial election. I thought it was pretty easy to grasp.

But let's say Kerry WAS actually talking about the troops. Let's say he WAS saying that the kids doing the fighting over in Iraq are largely uneducated. You know what? He's right! In general, our wars have been and probably always will be fought by our poor and our uneducated. Do any of us honestly believe there are more than a handful of upper-middle class white kids fighting in the streets of Baghdad right now? I don't, and I won't pretend that equality actually exists in the United States, or anywhere else for that matter. It isn't right, and I'm not defending it, but it is still a fact - politically correct or not. I believe that if this sad reality was grasped and understood fully by more Americans, the tides would turn on senseless wars.

I have a close friend who was in the middle east for a year. Thankfully, he was not stationed in Iraq, but in Kuwait. When I told him my opinion about Kerry's comment (that, like it or not, the guy is sadly correct) he affirmed my belief. He said that most of his unit was made up of minorities, including several hispanics who weren't even citizens of the United States, but had joined up simply to make some money, and hopefully shorten the wait time to become citizens. But every person in his unit, and nearly every front-line soldier he came in contact with had one thing in common: they were all poor, and most were uneducated.

That is why people join the army in the first place. It's that sign in the window that says, "$30,000 for college when you join." Why else would someone want to risk their life? Our standing army is made up largely of people who had few other places to turn. Even my friend is from a family with little money, and the army resrve seemed like his way into a good college to earn his degree in physics. That was seriously interrupted by the Bush regime's propoganda assault on the American public, and their consequential Iraq War battle cry. Fortunately for my friend, he made it back alive (several in his unit were killed), but not so for 2,700+ other young blue collar Americans, and countless more who will have to live the remainder of their lives maimed, crippled, or otherwise (who also have to live with this republican-congress' cutbacks on veterans' health care and aid).

So whether John Kerry meant to or not, and whether or not is politically correct to say so, we need to have the guts to admit to ourselves that the kids dying in Iraq are mostly poor, and mostly uneducated. They can spell and read and write - that isn't the point. But I would wager that not many of them went to Harvard. All Harvard kids, same as George W. Bush, can always wiggle their way out of being in any real danger, and never would a $30,000 promise for education assistance entice them to pick up a gun, fly to Iraq, and risk getting killed or loosing a limb. $30,000 would barely even cover one semester of college for them, and they don't have to pay for it anyhow.

On top of all this, I am so tired of the democrats always feeling the need to be sorry for everything they do. Mark Foley practically molests a little boy, Tom DeLay steals millions from American citizens, as does Keneth Lay, and the republicans just brush it aside - "no big deal, Mark Foley is a good man. His mother was an alcoholilc and he was molested by a priest." How come the Democrats can't just say, "John Kerry is a good person and a great leader. This is what he meant by saying that, and we stand by him." The republicans have solidarity to the point of stupidity - but the democrats are always on the run, and ready to jump ship on one another at any moment. They need to start putting their foot down and taking firm stances on things. Look how it's worked for the President. He STILL can't admit that things are bad in Iraq, and it's working for him, despite the obvious reality that he is dead wrong. Americans, particularly "conservatives," like to see solidarity and a willingness to stick to your guns, even to the point of insanity, a trait that the President wears on his sleeve.

Furthermore, I think the democrats would do well to make a point of saying, "you know what? Whether he meant to or not, Kerry brings up a very good point - our nation's lower and middle classes ARE the ones that are getting killed over there. We need to take this Nation back from the rich warmongers who think it is acceptable to kill 2,700 kids in a needless war, and turn it over to the middle class where it belongs." I think that they would have every blue-collar worker behind them on that one. It makes this power stuggle one of the rich against the poor - and there are a lot more poor people.

The democrats are always way too indecisive, and who can blame them? They are completely terrified of the GOP power machine that owns this nation, and they always will unless the public outcry is so much that it cannot be silenced. The democrats could accomplish this by taking a firm and bold stance on issues that really matter to the lower and middle classes, by speaking their minds, and not apologizing for it.

when only prudence matters

Five or six years ago I was in a disgusting sleeping bag on the floor of a hotel somewhere in the far reaches of the United States. I honestly cannot remember where I was, but it doesn't really matter at all. Being nowhere is always best. That night I overheard, and then interrupted, a conversation I will never forget. It was between a man who, at the time, I had great respect for, and a girl whom I respected for approximately twenty minutes when I first met her, then came to despise greatly. Nonetheless, at that moment I stuck up for her.

The man was a Christian pro-life activist with a lot of problems, and the girl was a self-righteous hippie Christian with blue hair that stank like she had planted something in it which had long ago turned soggy, and was in a state of severe decay. Let's call the girl Sarah and the man Brian.

The conversation was this: Sarah's sister was (and possibly still is) a deeply depressed lesbian addicted to pain killers and slicing her forearms with scissors. Brian, being the all-knowing God fearing man he was, was trying to explain to Sarah that God predestined people to either be those who will enter into "the kingdom of heaven," or one of those who wouldn't, and that her sister was obviously predestined to live a godless life and then go to hell where God had intended her to be. I think that maybe, in his own twisted way, Brian was trying to comfort her by insisting that she was doing all she could for her sister, and that God had simply intended for her to live a hopeless life.

I listened for quite some time before I got so fuming mad I couldn't contain myself. Everyone was surprised when I shot up out of my pretended sleep and started yelling. Essentially, this is what I said:

"Brian, what fucking difference does it make man? I don't even know why you're talking about this. The Christian bible says to go out and preach the gospel and help people right? So if you want to be a Christian like you say you are, why don't you just do that and stop bullshitting about things you couldn't possibly know the real answer to. Predestination might be true, and it might not be true, and you won't know for sure until you're there to see for yourself. Are you trying to justify Christians just sitting back and doing nothing because 'it's all predestined anyhow, so you can't change anything?' We can both agree that's rediculous. There are things that just aren't worth talking about because true or not, our actions should remain the same. If Sarah's sister is depressed and hopeless, Sarah has both a duty and a desire to help her - predestined to fail or not. How about some encouragement or some helpful advice, instead of some BS doom and gloom attitude based on a rediculous presumption of predestination that can't help, but can only hurt the situation?"

The other night I ended up in a similar conversation about "global warming" and the "runaway greenhouse effect." Two friends of mine, one a physics major, and one a geologist were arguing about whether global warming or a run-away greenhouse effect were occuring, and indeed whether it was even possible. Both had compelling arguments. The physics major was citing a mathematical equation stating the earth did not have enough mass to support a run away greenhouse effect. The geologist cited the amount of carbon being released artificially (not though natural means) by mankind, along with other unnatural toxins, lumped on top of deforestation which is the Earth's built-in air filter, then talked about the Earth's weather cycles through history gathered from core samples taken from the north and south poles. Fascinated by this argument between two full-fledged geniuses, I sat for a while before I again interrupted with a similar speech.

We can argue forever about things like this, but ultimately they are beyond our current ability to fully understand, so nobody will be able to proove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their standpoint is the right one. Is global warming a threat we are creating, or is it the Earth's natural cycle? Can we, or are we, altering the climate, or are we doomed no matter what? Scientists can argue to the death, but nobody lived through the last million (or hundred thousand) years of the Earth's life, and the people doing the bickering won't be around to catch the very dire effects of global warming, or the climate cycle, if there will be any to be seen. And even if the earth floods completely and New York, now under ten feet of water, sees 120 degree summers, they will argue whether we caused it, or it is a naturally occuring phenomenon that we were powerless to prevent. How do we make decisions when faced with opposing viewpoints and an impossibility of prooving either one to be correct?

We should take prudence into consideration.

What harm does cutting our carbon emissions cause? None. The "financial ruin" story is a myth written by oil companies and American car manufacturers who are saying, "we like things just the way they are, thank you very much." I'm sure wagon salesmen and horse farmers got pretty pissed off when Henry Ford rolled out his model T, but with every new technology comes the emergence of a new industry. Instead of corporations forcing things to remain the same, they have to be foreward thinking and innovative, or risk loosing everything to those that are.

On the flip side of cutting emissions is doing absolutely nothing. What possible harm could this cause? According to many scientists, this could be a severe change in life as we know it: hotter summers, colder winters, hurricanes more powerful than we have ever seen, lakes and rivers drying up, New York City under water.

When faced with two un-provable options we must employ the long forgotten tactic of erring on the side of caution. Just as in the conversation about pre-destination, the conversation on climate change won't be put to rest until we wait it out and see what happens. And even then, it may continue. But the conversation itself can be dangerous if one side proposes taking a certain action (in this case, the "action" is inaction), solely based on their own opinion, that could possibly give rise to a disastrous outcome, whereas the alternative poses fewer, if any, risks at all. Those arguing against global warming may have good points scientifically, but what are they really insisting we do? Are they honestly arguing that we should do nothing to cut our emissions of carbon and other harmful chemicals into the atmosphere? Are they really saying that it is okay for us to continue to pollute and destroy with the same magnitude? Was Bryan insisting that Christians should give up ministering and helping other people, just because God had predestined them to "go to hell"? I'm no biblical scholar, but I think that most Christians would be offended by that idea. So why have the conversation at all? Why not just say, "I don't know whether this is true or not, so I am going to make the best choice possible and do what feels right." Helping people in need feels right. Reducing the amount of pollution in the air, soil, and water of the earth in which we all must live, and cutting back our consumption of natural resources that are in limited supply just feels like the right thing to do.

Let's continue the debate, while making the right choice right now. There is too much hanging in the balance. Enough of the partisan rhetoric. Enough with the statistics and one-sided, incongruous scientific data. How about putting some good 'ol logic on the table, and considering that for a change?

it's a bit confusing, so give me time.

I have to admit that I have no idea how to work this blogspot thing. HTML and all of this mumbo jumbo are completely foreign to me. I need to upgrade my .mac membership to a full one (right now it is just an email address under my wife's full membership) so that I can use my .mac account to set up a blog, because this thing really, really confuses me. My mac is so easy and making a web site is so simple. I sound like I work for them but I really don't. I just like my computer. I like clicking and dragging things, not typing incoherant chains of letters and punctuation marks.

So it seems that people have been leaving comments for quite some time and I didn't know it. Then I inadvertently deleted a lot of them by clicking them all and then hitting the wrong button. I'm sorry. Next time I'll do better.

Now I'm going to get on my knees and pray to the god of the internet to forgive me my sins and please let don't let everybody hate me. Actually, let everybody hate me. Life is more interesting that way.