Don't Try to Make Sense of This...

THROUGH THE RABBIT HOLE!

The Impact of Nonsense Politics:

Don’t try to make sense of this…
It certainly is different down here!
Down is up…and well, you get it. And you need a thick skin to survive in this place. Under the current regime, I –a Veteran of Overseas duty—have been labeled as “unpatriotic” by the powers that be! Yes, don’t make me laugh! This coming from a crew that has done everything in its power to avoid military service. .

I have been told that because I personally disagree with the Administration’s lies about “terrorism” and the subsequent phantom threats that are being used to get its own way, I have become a resident Bad Guy. But that’s not all! Because I do not support “the War that shouldn’t be,” I have been relegated to the category of "unwelcome." What next? They will beat me up in some foreign province of the Ukraine? . What troubles me is not so much that I should be the guy expressing outrage and everyone should be clinging to my coat-tails, the truth of this fiasco is that there are those who still buy it--who still link Saddam with bin Laden. But things are starting to change as evidenced by collapsing poll numbers.

I always labored under the assumption that the citizens of any country labeling itself a democracy had a certain amount of freedom to voice their opinions. What’s more, in a system that purportedly values equality, my opinion was certainly as good as any of theirs.
So why was it that nobody was paying attention to what was going on?

But I shouldn’t have been surprised. Look at how they treated Cindy Sheehan, she of the lost son—lost to a war that made no sense—when she appeared at the State of the Union garbed in a tee shirt that spelled out how many of our ‘best and brightest’ have been lost to us on the killing fields of Iraq. They put her in handcuffs, arrested her and made her face the indignity of waiting in a holding cell. This to a mother who has already been through Hell after sacrificing her son to a cause for which there is no basis in rationality or fact.

To say that this has pushed a few of my buttons is clearly an understatement.

You say the war is not justified? That we are perpetuating a lie? Damned right!

And we have to listen to this government insinuate that there was a reason good enough to send thousands to an early grave and who knows how many more to be wounded since they won’t release the gross figures citing the fact that wounded are being totaled by each command for each type of accident! Sure! (I figured more than 100,000! With some rough calculations that are very conservative…)

But what is particularly maddening is the numbers of otherwise average Americans who are quick to buy into the argument that bin Laden and Saddam used to go out bitching and whoring together. Yeah! Fat chance.
Oh well, what are you going to do. P.T. Barnum and Baltimore’s Menken were right on target!...

This opens the door a bit to the real downside that we are faced with. The opposition can say anything it likes and get away with it unless someone takes umbrage!...And these days no one takes umbrage because they are either afraid or don’t want a ton of law suits on their head (or they don't have the faintest clue what umbrage means...)

The media lays low for very good reasons! It knows what side its bread is buttered on, thereby relinquishing the role of key player in the game of checks and balances. Reason: So that the the government will become its enabler of record when said media empire buys up the last newspaper or the last TV station.

As a result of this conspiracy to perpetuate ignorance, the government retains its role as gate-keeper.

So part of the problem is that Americans, denied media objectivity, must find the answers for themselves. And when it comes to doing that kind of digging, they would prefer to farm it out. Only, we already have Hispanics doing the heavy-lifting so this kind of task goes to India where they can find the truth for one quarter of what it costs us… Meanwhile, our border states polish off their anti-immigrant legislation to keep the people who do the jobs that nobody else wants to do from entering. See what I mean about upside down?

We all secretly know now the pathway to enlightenment. . We know that when our computers go down or we're checking our State insurance premium, we are getting “Joe” or “Jennifer” whose last names are both Patel after we’ve gone through the telephone maze. And we know we shall never reach the Customer Service Manager because he has morphed into an Intel chip and a few million megapixels.

Consider just the other day when I was attempting to bitch to American Airlines for the lousy trip back from the West Coast. And after a half-hour of recorded messages I got a real body who didn’t know the answer but suggested I write the Customer Service Manager. I, of course, responded that I had already done that and didn’t even qualify for the How to handle complaint form or twenty copies of the “I’m sorry, sir, this is the first time this has ever happened to us…” letter… She disconnected adding to my chagrin.

Would this have happened if I had prefaced my name with doctor or colonel, I don’t know. I only knew that I was upset to recall that the concept of service must have been adapted by Extra-Galactic creatures since it surely is nowhere in evidence where I live…

Anyway, moving on. Since we’ve moved into what I refer to as the ACE era (artificially created enmity against all humans!), we have had to learn to live with little inconveniences like not enough vaccine to go round when the Big One comes and wipes out all “Blue State” voters, which we know will happen with a little help from our Rovian friends—especially when they hand out those placebos with a smile after asking whether we’re democrat or republican. . Unfortunately, this will mean that the Extreme Right Wing will get to do whatever it wants which it already does including snooping on you and me.
To give you an idea of how invasive this can be, consider that last week they looked up Uncle Charlie’s hotel stay without Aunt Tillie. Don’t you think that created a stir! Somehow, I’m old enough to have remembered when it was considered the height of impoliteness to invade somebody’s privacy. Today, anything goes and nobody blinks an eye! Young folks, to their credit, would allow you step on their eyes and wouldn’t say a thing. That’s because they have access to the best meds!

That may in fact be the ultimate solution: good meds!

I am sure it would do a lot for society…like keep the murder rate down!
And I could certainly use something like that when the plane is late and we have to lay over.

When I go to the airport these days, I can’t help but stare at everyone’s shoes and head coverings. To me strange head coverings and odd shoes kind of get me catatonic. I can’t explain it. It’s bad enough you have to sit next to people for whom Gillette is the reason for a Fatwah…but when they start fooling with their feet, we’ll that does it for me.

In the meantime, I am kind of adjusting to the world of Alice… I am getting used to hearing about clean air and water programs that are designed to make the air polluted and the water toxic! …I am getting used to that!

I am getting used to native Americans being sautéed by those who claim to be looking out for their interests… I am getting used to the idea that the job I was dreaming about is now being done by some bandy legged creature who studied up on American jargon enough so that he can do my job….and I am even used to being called unpatriotic by the “numb nuts” who run things…the guys who declare war for our own good and then forget to get the kids armored up enough to keep a mortar round from turning them into a paper weight—thanks to the good uncle who’d rather be somewhere else!
And in spite of it all, we keep on plugging. And so it goes…

Ciao! Catch you next time…

Les Aaron
For Through the Rabbit Hole