The "L" Word

Many years ago I realized that I was (shall I say it out loud?) a Liberal. I sort of knew what that meant but I couldn’t articulate it well. So, I went looking for a book that might explain it. I soon found a book with the intriguing title; “The L Word”. ("The L Word: An Unapologetic, Thoroughly Biased, Long-Overdue Explication and Celebration of Liberalism" by David P. Barash).
I understood immediately that this was my book. The author devised the name in reaction to the rather successful campaign by Ronald Reagan and crew to make liberalism appear as a dirty word; that there was virtually no difference between liberals and Marxist-Communist, anarchist, perverted America-hating crazies.
The book explained, as I thought, that liberalism is a rather moderate concept that works for the betterment of the most people possible. Furthermore, the well being of the citizens of our nation is more important that the rights of non-living inventions like corporations. It’s pretty simple don’t you think: the most benefit for the most amount of people.
This doesn’t mean that our success is best served by the prosperity of our corporations and their stockholders, an idea known as the trickle-down theory. I’ve been on the bottom, folks, and it doesn’t trickle down. It stays with the mega-rich CEOs and the rest of the rich guys at the top. Now, I don’t for a moment have anything against healthy corporations. We all need to work. It’s just that these companies are not worth more than one human life.
So, here’s a challenge: Name the top ten best things that conservatives have given to America?

And while those answers come spilling out faster than you can write them down, consider the following:

These are just a few little programs passed by liberals over the years: Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, women's suffrage, federal deposit insurance, unemployment compensation, rural electrification, child labor laws, minimum wages and the 40-hour work week?

How do your lists compare?

Casino Revenge

From the very first week of Columbus’ landing in the new world, the Native Peoples have gotten the shaft. For the next 500 years, the American Indians would have everything taken from them, including their most important cultural possession: their land. They’ve been cheated, murdered, “re-educated”, humiliated, enslaved and finally, herded onto the most worthless tracts of land available to get them out of the way.
The results, as you might imagine, have been devastating. Government entities, private research firms, and Indian groups have detailed reports concerning poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, high crime rates, poor educational facilities, and many other problems.
In 1988, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act which recognized the right of Indian Tribes in the United States to establish gambling and gaming facilities on their reservations as long as the states in which they are located have some form of legalized gambling.
The economic benefits that have arisen from gambling can best be seen in the labor market. Tribal unemployment and welfare rates have dropped. Indian unemployment rates of 30 percent and more are dropping to almost nothing with the emergence of Indian casinos.
Furthermore, they are building schools/colleges and community centers, setting up education trust funds and scholarships, investing in alcohol and drug treatment programs, financing new business enterprises and putting in water and sewer systems on the reservations.
JoAnn Jones, tribal chair of the Wisconsin Winnebago Nation observed, “Tribal governments realize that a casino is not an end in itself. It is a means to achieve what no state or federal economic development program has been able to achieve for Indian people in 200 years--the return of self-respect and economic self-sufficiency".
So, at least temporarily, many Indian Tribes have finally found a tool with which to better themselves and wreak a delicious revenge on the white man at the same time. And the Indians do not have to rob or kill or even cheat the white man. No, the foolish white man is voluntarily, even eagerly, marching into the casinos and emptying his pockets and bank accounts onto the gaming tables and walking away happy. Custer would be horrified.

Mountains of Nonsense

In this world there are thinkers and there are believers. It is actually more of a blend than a hard line but for the sake of discussion I will divide the two. The thinkers see the world in a multitude of colors with infinite shades of gray.
The believer is bewildered by this cacophony of variations and, driven by fear, feels the need to simplify it; to crank the resolution down and the contrast up so that the end result is as few shades of gray as possible, graphically speaking. Black and white is preferred. If everything, including political, ethical and religious ideas, are simply either/or, good and evil, then it is easy to put yourself on the “right” side and defend the good against the evil. One feels finally secure; even righteous.
After all, the world of blurred meanings and fuzzy implications is a difficult world to navigate. You must constantly be evaluating information and assigning values to it on a minute by minute basis. And if you arrive at any kind of definite opinion about it, that may change at any moment when new info comes in. Very messy. Very insecure. Very RELATIVIST.
No, the believer feels much more secure in a world that is well defined, where all values are named, numbered and placed in their appropriate pigeon holes. If this simplicity and security is purchased at the price of reality. well then, it’s a small price to pay.
On the other hand, the thinker places him or herself at the mercy of the winds. They will inevitably find themselves without clear-cut explanations and answers. They may not know for sure, the origin of the universe, the role on mankind in it, or where it’s all headed. They will not know for sure the worth of any politician, right or left, any solution to any problem, or even, if they are very skeptical, whether any of this matters.
Somehow, by their very nature, they are not terribly bothered by this and operate with the Wisdom of Insecurity, as Allan Watts put it. They seem to be able to function on a daily basis without losing their minds or their sense of humor. This does not make these thinkers necessarily correct on any given subject, but it does put them on the path.
The believer, because of intellectual laziness and fear has, by their own admission, given up on the world of reality and settled on nonsense. In fact, in the Bible, almost the first act by man in the Garden of Eden is partaking of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. The lesson being that it is against the will of their God and therefore a sin to seek knowledge. And so, bursting with pride and righteousness, they have actually raised nonsense to the level of mountains.

And The Beat Goes On

This little adventure into Iraq is turning out just as the left-wingers said it would. Those unwashed, bearded, fellow-traveler, pinko, bleeding hearts correctly predicted the results of this disaster and the righteous, God-fearin, law abiding conservatives got it wrong. What could be more embarrassing?
During the Viet Nam war the “peaceniks” were called every name in the book including unpatriotic, unGodlike, dirty, filthy cowards that didn’t want to defend American against those North Vietnamese Communists who were surely going to sail across the Pacific Ocean to America in their fishing junks and take over the United States. In the end, we all know how that turned out.
I’m reminded of a rather famous quote that sounds oddly familiar;

“ . . . the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Hermann Goering, from his cell in Nuremberg before he killed himself.

As one of my gurus, Sonny Bono, said, “The beat goes on”.