Hear I Rant Jamaica

What a weird world we live in

Tax day April 15 gave the teapartyers an opportunity to show their strength by staging protests.  The rally in Ft Lauderdale did make me a little anxious, for good reason… because the American people cannot be credited with naturally good judgement.  George Bush is proof of that.

I hate to be stereotypical of a whole mass of people but my low opinion of the teapartyers in particular is justified by facts.

I have spoken with a few of them and on the first occasion, the dude was a spittle machine.  He was sprinkling everywhere.  I almost needed a wetsuit.  He started off calmly enough but soon mutated into a sort of manic figure with bulging neck veins, flaying arms and screechingly disturbing voice.  I saw the type at Bellevue and nothing short of a frontal lobotomy is helpful.

Other occasions made me realize that they are generally devoid of logic and reality… but really, when one’s main source is Fox news then inanity is expected.  Another symptom is of course racism, masked by code words… today’s popular favourites being thug and gangster.   And finally, hypocrisy.

I noted with interest that while the mobs railed against ‘overspending’ and wanted to cut the deficits, no one mentioned ending the wars and bringing the troops home.

Ending the wars would save money, but many mothers, wives, children and husbands would be grateful for being able to be with their loved ones.  But saving lives is not the republicants/teapartyers priority, even if its American lives.  The same for their opposition to the health care bill, “Save lives?  We can’t afford to”.

Also never mentioned, is cutting back on weapons spending.  America, with 5% of the world’s population, spends 40% of all the money spent on military purchases.  Like the Pentagon, conservatives never see a weapon that costs too much and should be avoided.  Their preference is guns over butter.  I guess the thought is you don’t need to produce food if you can steal it.

There are two accusations that are illogically confounding if one but thinks. Obama is turning the country ‘socialist’.   Firstly, most of them have no idea what socialism is.  One ‘near socialist’ programme, universal health care, does not a socialist make.

Obama has not deviated much from George Bush’s playbook, to the dismay of those who mandated him to dismantle the gross errors of the Bush administration.  Granted, Obama is a better manager, but that’s not he point.

It’s clear that Obama is centre, in American politics.  Any accusation of socialism is clearly asinine.

The new one is that Obama is favoring blacks.  I wish that someone would tell the blacks that, ‘cause we sure nuff aint seen it, suh!’.  I can’t figure exactly what they could be thinking of.   I mean the biggest ‘crash programme’ is the bailout of the banks, Wall Street and the auto industry.   Not that many blacks there.

And logic is something they don’ appreciate.  They castigate Obama for the bailout and stimulus money given to the financial sector.  Yet they oppose regulating the same sector responsible for causing the crash, as if left alone, Wall Street will clean up its act.   Riiiiight.  Like leaving the fox in the henhouse and expecting it to become vegetarian.

But again Obama has created a dilemma for the republicants.   The indictment of Goldman Sachs, and the release of the emails of them boasting how they had defrauded the American people, will make only the most foolhardy vote against financial reform.  But no one ever accused the teapartyers and the republicants of being even a little bit sensible.

I watched news shows on Sunday morning and it was incredible to see how the hosts and panel members danced around what was obvious.

Their claims that the democrats and Obama were unpopular because Obama has forced a debate about big government vs small government rings patently hollow.   The same for the supposed rationale about deficits.  Big government has been around for some time. These cretins said nothing because their party was in power.  While Obama was forced to add to the deficit, it was multiplied by George Bush, a republican president, with the clear assent of the republican party.

What no one wants to state openly, is that many Americans resent their ‘black’ president and openly want him to fail, so as to justify their bigotry of how unworthy ‘blacks’ are. It matters not one iota to them that the country might be bouncing back from the George Bush inspired economic devastation.

The other truth?  A considerable % of Americans are just plain stupid.  Just look around you.

Oh yes, another thing about the teapartyers.  They lack originality.  Their arguments, accusations, symbols are all borrowed and regurgitated.  I saw one sign, “How is that Hopey Changey thing working for yah!’, parroting Sarah Palin, when she thought that the health care bill wasn’t going to pass.  Now that it has passed, that quote is redundant.

Passersby might also have seen a yellow flag amongst teapartyers, with a coiled rattler and the words ‘Don’t tread on me’.  Interesting, except that same symbolism was used by  leftist student demonstrators in the late 60’s.

***

I’m amazed by the whole brouhaha surrounded the recent roman catholic church scandal over child-abusing priests.  Amazed, not by the actions of the priests, or by the cover-up, or even the likelihood of the present pope being culpable, but because people have this ‘how can this be true?’ look on their faces.

History, my friend, history.  The church, particularly the roman catholic church, has always been about power, money, corruption, politics. It is bred in the veins of the Vatican.  They cannot live without these devices, the way I cannot live without a heart.  It is intrinsic, in their veins, part and parcel of what makes them who they are.

The church has never been for the people.  Granted, individual priests might strictly follow the tenets of gods, but the church itself behaves more like a corporation.  Putting everything but its own corruption behind it. 

The people?  The church believes that the communicants are there to serve the church, by giving their wealth, obedience and credulity. 

And after every scandal and ‘tut tut’, the church reverts to tits basic nature and its audience accepts the status quo.

But one only has to look at history to recognize the massive failures of the church. So many popes have been corrupt and abusive of power, can the lower order be pure?  I have no doubt that the church behaves as badly and even worse than corporations as walmart, macdonalds and blackwater.

They finessed genocide over the centuries and even turned blind eyes to Hitler’s purge of the Jews.

They blessed the pillaging, rape and murder of the invading hordes as they alongside the king’s or queen’s men brought death and destruction to their enemies.  The church promoted, and profited from the carnage.  The more the dead, the greater the spoils. Sexual perversion is the least of the church’s sins.

The Vatican today, has not really changed.  It is still about a white old boys club.  It is still about wealth and power by all means necessary.  And when you control the word of god, you can have the luxury of no conscience.  That’s what the papacy is about… yeah, yeah.

***

I’m not a democrat or a republican because I don’t align myself to any political organization.  But commonsense tells me this.

The democrats never vote as one.  There are always dissenters.  Not always good, but that’s party democracy.  It’s therefore more difficult to pinpoint who is most susceptible to corruption.

The republicans on the other hand, vote in lockstep.  It’s statistically impossible for a group of over 100 to vote the same way all the time, and be democratic.  That only happens in cults and the mafia. 

Are republicans corrupt?   It’s reasonable to believe that simply because of their voting trend. They are anti-environment, anti-jobs, anti-unions, with the inclination to support the most odious of anti-people measures. They tend to take the active role of corporate lackeys.

While I will not go into ‘vote buying’, it is clear that the republicants are morally and ethically challenged, when it comes to doing the people’s business on the people’s behalf.  The problem unfortunately, lies not in their corrupt nature, but in the stupidity to those who continue to be confounded by them.

On one of the said morning shows, a popular conservative pundit was saying that the conservatives like voting for principled republicans.  Unfortunately, one of the names he forwarded was republican Marc Rubio, who is wants to represent the people of Florida as a senator.

This perhaps requires the redefining of ‘principled’.   Wasn’t this the party leader who used the party credit card for his and his family’s own personal aggrandizements, and when caught claimed that he didn’t know he shouldn’t have used it for personal expenses such as groceries, plane tickets for his wife, car repairs, wine buying, online shopping from Apple, and fine dining.  

Though he claimed that there was no malfeasance, he still refunded the party over $16,000.00.  Yet, the embezzlement is being overlooked by holier-than-thou republicans.

What a weird world we live in.

***

While I can fully appreciate our prime minister fighting for the rights of Jamaican citizens, his advocacy on behalf of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke is a little too self-serving for my taste.   Actually, it does follow the Golding pattern… see NDM.

Makes me wonder where he was before when other Jamaicans were getting extradited and even kidnapped.

Many feel that this is not a legal issue on the rights of Jamaicans at all, but that Golding has great disincentive not to kill or have Coke extradited.  This certainly doesn’t disprove the perception of the links between criminals and politicians.  But of course, I’m not saying that Coke is a criminal.

Bringing up the charge that the US is not doing enough in stopping the transshipment of guns to Jamaica is also certainly true.  But we must look at the timing.  This is not a new issue, and it is not difficult to perceive a self-serving reason for this renewed attention.

But turn as he might, he is twisting in the wind.  The Americans are just gonna apply more subtle pressure, and the we will see.  Some of us might feel it necessary to pray for him in his predicament, even though these ‘men of god’ should very well understand that one cannot serve both god and satan at the same time.    Sometimes when you sell your soul, the demand for it comes before the hereafter.

About the author

hearirant

Writer, photographer, artist. Have been doing all three for some time. More about myself and my art can be found at http://www.louisdavisart.com, and http://www.broward.org/arts/publications/cq/2008/winter08/cq_winter08.htm