I've always kinda wondered why the GOP has become this intensely selfish, self-serving white evangelical Christian-dominated fascist political system, but when I think carefully on it, I realize that with few notable exceptions they've always been that way. When one looks at their entire platform, it is against nearly everything this country has stood for. What's worse, it embraces some of the most regressive social and political policies promoted anywhere in the world today while contemptably, in head-in-the-sand fashion, diverts attention away from the presence of the kinds of dire economic and environmental dangers facing civilization today that our fore-fathers could never have imagined.
In a modern era when most industrialized countries are gaining more human rights, are better educated, becoming more civil and humane, learning from the mistakes of their past, our people (led primarily by the Republicans but the Democrats are also culpable) are seeing their rights being eroded, our culture becoming less and less humane, and more dumbed down, more self-centered. Is it any wonder that there are 42,000 murders in this country every year? Is it any wonder the rich are becoming richer while the middle class and the poor lose ground every day? The system is rigged by the selfish rich, for the selfish rich. It is no longer about "We the People" (if it ever, in fact, was) because, well, to hear Republicans talk about it, that's socialism.
If we as a nation of diverse peoples don't learn to help one another (bonobos do a better job of it than we do), learn how to get along, to expand our compassion for our fellow human beings and the Earth itself, learn to live together as one people and live with the environment that nurtures and sustains us instead of devolving into the polarization and contraction that we see happening today, then I fear this country is doomed to repeat the terrible history that European countries experienced in centuries past; feudalism, religious wars, dire poverty and rampant disease, and worse - environmental collapse; all the mistakes our founding fathers tried to avoid when they created this country. Our country is one national disaster away from moral, cultural, and economy bankruptcy, and we are completely unprepared for it. And the saddest part is that many see it coming, as does much of the rest of the world, including our enemies. And when it happens, what will be the Republicans bleat as their rallying cry to save our country from its own follies? No doubt it will be something breathtakingly stupid, such "Its the fault of the fags/liberals/atheists/socialists/illegal aliens", anyone but themselves.
That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.
In a modern era when most industrialized countries are gaining more human rights, are better educated, becoming more civil and humane, learning from the mistakes of their past, our people (led primarily by the Republicans but the Democrats are also culpable) are seeing their rights being eroded, our culture becoming less and less humane, and more dumbed down, more self-centered. Is it any wonder that there are 42,000 murders in this country every year? Is it any wonder the rich are becoming richer while the middle class and the poor lose ground every day? The system is rigged by the selfish rich, for the selfish rich. It is no longer about "We the People" (if it ever, in fact, was) because, well, to hear Republicans talk about it, that's socialism.
If we as a nation of diverse peoples don't learn to help one another (bonobos do a better job of it than we do), learn how to get along, to expand our compassion for our fellow human beings and the Earth itself, learn to live together as one people and live with the environment that nurtures and sustains us instead of devolving into the polarization and contraction that we see happening today, then I fear this country is doomed to repeat the terrible history that European countries experienced in centuries past; feudalism, religious wars, dire poverty and rampant disease, and worse - environmental collapse; all the mistakes our founding fathers tried to avoid when they created this country. Our country is one national disaster away from moral, cultural, and economy bankruptcy, and we are completely unprepared for it. And the saddest part is that many see it coming, as does much of the rest of the world, including our enemies. And when it happens, what will be the Republicans bleat as their rallying cry to save our country from its own follies? No doubt it will be something breathtakingly stupid, such "Its the fault of the fags/liberals/atheists/socialists/illegal aliens", anyone but themselves.
That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
