"He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof from the moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
It didn't help clear up anything. It was just something else to put somewhere. When I used to have these kinds of questions I'd ask my Dad, "Does this happen to everybody?". Standard answer: "What do I know?" I don't know either, but what I do know is that I got to put it somewhere. Twitter doesn't work--tweets to short. Facebook is truly a "Social Network" and I think folks get REAL TIRED of my stuff. Especially when the general discussion is focused on the next 'event', or the heat index for the day. SO, since it's got to go somewhere, here goes...
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"The Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison corporation, has proposed to 48 state governors that it will operate their prison systems for 20 years with a guaranteed 90% occupancy rate.
A majority of those incarcerated have committed non violent crimes."
And then there was this:
And who could go a day without being assaulted by:
Marian Wright Edelman
Children's Defense Fund
An alternate strategy..
"The war zone-like statistics are not new. As WBEZ reports, while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data."- full article Chicago Homicide Rate Worse than Kabul... and video here
"All of the violence that is taking place in Chicago and other urban cities is not about gangs and crews. It is about the convergence of massive and generational poverty, under-education, addiction, a culture of violence to solve problems, lack of opportunity and unemployment, and oh yeah....lack of hope...on a packed city when it gets hot."
The entire article, Raise Hell About Chicago Violence, written by Jeff Johnson can be found here.
And then there was this:
And who could go a day without being assaulted by:
"I think it can now be said, without equivocation ... that this man hates this country. He is trying -- Barack Obama is trying -- to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream. There's no other way to put this. There's no other way to explain this. He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced...".
-Rush Limbaugh
There appears to be a major move to complicate the voting process for American citizens by requiring some form of voter's id. When does a "right" no longer look/feel like a "right?
More information on voter identification movement can be found at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Staying with this 2012 Election campaign (which would really be laughable, if it were a comedy show) take a look at this:
Yes, there's been quite a bit of discussion about Romney being booed at the NAACP conference. Personally, I thought it a little rude and that wasn't even the real highlight of the engagement (to me). The real "moment" was his standing ovation. It didn't get much play. Now if I were a conspiracy theorist, I would be thinking like this guy--AnimalNewYork.com. I would have been wondering: "Hmmm, what is that Karl Rove up to?"
Ill Doctrine: Mitt Romney's Blackest Week Ever from ANIMALNewYork.com on Vimeo.
You see, it wasn't about the NAACP Conference at all. That was the set up for his speech the next night in Montana. This is how he described the previous nights experience:
"When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare they weren’t happy, I didn’t get the same response. That’s O.K, I want people to know what I stand for and if I don’t stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that’s just fine…
But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff."
And finally ...
One of the journalist I read regularly is Dave Zirin. This was a response I wrote to Dave's recent article: Shocking Truth About Joe Paterno, Penn State and Tom Corbett
The Freeh Report: A Picture of Who We Have Become -You know, Dave, after reading The Freeh Report, I am struck most by how very much "Happy Valley" is a perfect microcosim of who we have become as a nation. We talk about how important our children are to us; but when it comes to allocating resources to nourish and protect them... not so much. We talk about honesty and integrity but when it stands between us and $... not so much. A culture that supports concealing criminals is pervasive. In "higher" circles we don't describe it as snitching, and no one is giving out t-shirts encouraging alternate behavior. This report comes complete with representation from all walks of American life, and they played out their roles as if scripted. From the politicians to the janitors, each in turn uttered their predictable lines, and scrificed our children. Unfortunately, if I am honest with myself, I cannot say that any of it surprises me. I have seen it all before. I see it every day. And unfortunately, I cannot say that I would be surprised if I didn't see it repeated again...and again. Because as ugly as it is, as hard as it is to look at, it is who we have become. Over the coming days, months and years there will be the struggle to paint over the soiled picture and return it to a pretentious "happy" pastels. There will also be the ever present need to close our eyes and just turn away. But there will also be those who continue to say NO to the status quo, and those voices are the glimmer of hope for us and our children.
So there you have it. Maybe you can sort it out. "What do I know?"
