Tag: Republicans

Not A Revelation: Magical Thinking Is Stupid, Stupid, STUPID!

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Everyone — myself included — is guilty, guilty, guilty of Magical Thinking. I may not have an imaginary friend like some or follow rules plucked from my imagination or my ass, but I have, when Tottenham Hotspur (my footie team) is down two goals late in a game, still thought it was possible for them not to lose.  They lost.

My magical thinking led to personal disappointment — unpleasant but survivable.

If I used that magical thinking though as the basis for a belief system — Spurs lost so therefore a whole host of other things (beyond football) must follow “logically” demanding certain actions and counter-actions — and if that belief system’s impact spread beyond my own disappointment (because my team lost a game) — out into everyone else’s lives — that would be a problem.  I would have taken something based in unrealistic nonsense-thinking out into reality — with unrealistic expectations for it.

Gosh – should I be shocked when more disappointment follows?

Today’s ludicrous Magical Thinking headlines (among others) — Trump’s military transgender ban takes effect & there are still “thoughtful” people walking around who think AG Bill Barr isn’t desperately trying to cover up a massive, explosively far-reaching scandal that will consume and destroy the entire Republican Party.

The basis for the military transgender ban, of course, is pure, unadulterated bullshit.  I would love to put all the Magical Thinkers who base their contemporary lives on the knowledge base of uneducated desert-dwellers who thought everything revolved around the earth onto an airplane large enough to accommodate them all.  Then, as we rolled toward the runway, I’d like to introduce them to their pilot.  He knows nothing about flying planes.  But he “believes” he can do it — so off they all go…

Magical Thinking comes with being a homo sapien.  Until such a time as it evolves out of our brains, it will be hard-wired into us.  It’s the first thought that burps from the miasma of our uncertainty.  Magic: the explanation for this wonder must be Magic.  It ain’t.

I could go on and on — I recommend watching this lecture that Neil deGrasse Tyson gave a few years ago.  His point: even the greatest minds in the history of science — Isaac Newton among them — surrendered to Magical Thinking when they reached the end of their knowledge base.  A little while later, some other thinker solved the problem — no more need for Magical Thinking.

The answers to all our questions are out there.  We may not get to them all in our lifetime — but they’re out there once we gain the knowledge or the knowledge to make the instruments we need to “see” the knowledge and the answers they provide.

America has always been fertile territory for Magical Thinking.  Strange, exotic religions (lots of them offshoots of Christianity) have come and gone here.  One of the first groups of Europeans to settle and (more or less) survive — the Pilgrims — were so deep into their offshoot brand of Christianity that none of the other Christians wanted them nearby.  So the Pilgrims came here.  Think about it: one of the foundational European groups to call North America home came here because their brand of ooga-booga was too ooga-booga-y for other believers of the same basic ooga-booga!

It’s not a coincidence that Mormonism and Scientology were American creations.  Jewish mythology is extensive.  By “mythology”, I mean stories that sit squarely outside the provable.  They may have some shadowy echo in the historical record but the echo has been blown up into something it never was.  As it’s the surviving word of these people and their times, we have no way to put these texts into a larger perspective.  We can use our current knowledge base — including our knowledge of germ theory — to figure a guy like Noah could not (and did not) put every animal on the planet on a boat and did not, subsequently, live to some biologically impossible age well into the hundreds.

Magical Thinking allows a person to believe that his foundational texts appeared out of nowhere — the product of divine intervention.  These tenets he lives by — they’re not his idea, their a deity’s.  Therefore they must be the Truth.  Yeah, but — the guy next to you has a whole other mythology in his head — with conflicting details — all based on the very same texts.  Either one of these two has it wrong or their deities are terrible communicators.

Think about that:  Magical Thinking can imagine a deity capable of creating the vastness of EVERYTHING — but can’t put the basics of how & why into a form two people can agree upon.  That’s a deity so flawed, illogical and goofy that only a homo sapien could dream it up.  And then believe that IT created HIM.

Here’s my problem in something larger than a nutshell… If you tell me going in that you’re a person of faith — and you believe in Magical Thinking and its Magical explanations for how and why we’re all here & how and why we need to live together as peacefully as we can — then I’m going to look at you with a shitload of doubt.  I know for a fact because you’ve told me — given a good enough story, you can be made to believe anything.

If you believe in Magical Thinking, your judgment sucks.  I’m simply going along with what you’re telling me.

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A Democracy’s Bottom Line Must Be Its Principles – Not Money or Power

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Let’s take it a step further: OUR Democracy’s bottom line must be its principles — not money or power.

Let’s frame it correctly though. OUR Democracy’s principles started off un-principled. We cut a deal with slavery.  We accommodated it and it cost us dearly.  We fought a Civil War because we compromised our principles.  We failed at Reconstruction because of it. We failed to even live up to the claim that we’d fixed the problem by amending the Constitution.  Slavery — and the compromises it caused — haunts this country every single day.

So — with that unfortunate caveat (and the additional caveat that we didn’t give women full rights and the vote at the start) — but with the knowledge that we are finally beginning to address slavery (and our institutional misogyny) with the gravity and purpose it deserves (reparations for slavery would be a good start) — our Democracy’s bottom line must be the Enlightenment-age principles that the founders aspired to — updated but not undermined.

There’s a reason why America became a beacon to the rest of the world.  Something happened here that never happened before.  A country was founded not on some dynastic claim but on a set of principles.

That’s the good news but it’s also the bad news.

Principles — as a foundation — are concrete.  But they cannot breathe the same air as Money or Power.  The instant principle gives in to either money or power — the principles die.  Money and Power are that toxic to Principles.

What’s happened here, in America, is: We allowed our already compromised principles to be further compromised. We are living at the mercy of people who claim principle while exercising nothing but power given to them by money.  There’s not a principle in sight.  Hell — there’s not a principle in the same hemisphere.

So — how do we fix this?  CAN we fix this?

I guess that’s our mission going forward — answer that question.  For starters we’re going to have to clean house.  We’re going to have to be brutally honest with ourselves — and why & how we got ourselves into this mess.  Then we’re going to have to be brutally honest about what we can forgive and what we can’t.  The “what we can’t” list is going to be long.  It better be if we really intend to fix this.

Maybe that’s what it will take — brutal honesty with ourselves (individually too; it’s no fair always putting brutal honesty on the shoulders of some abstract “they”).  We got slavery wrong, wrong, wrong.  We need to do everything we can to fix it.. Reparations… killing of the electoral college… Owning up to and sectioning off the deep beam of racism that runs through this country.

Let’s own up to the sexism and misogyny too.  We have to.  It’s a matter of principle, right?

Living by your principles ain’t cheap.  Be warned.  Doing things the right way vs the expedient way is, by its nature, more expensive — in money and in time.  While we may have fewer dollars in our pockets, we’ll be healthier (because regulations will have made our food, air, water safer) and happier (because when more people benefit from our system — even more people will benefit as a result — happiness grows exponentially).  It’s just a fact of Life — nothing is free.  Anything you think is free?  You haven’t seen the hook yet.

When you live by your principles though, you insist on paying what’s fair to get what’s fair. You treat all people equally because all people are equal — so say your principles.

If America can get its bottom line back to where it belongs — away from Republican greed and power-lust — to our Democratic Principles — if we “CAN” — we’ll walk away battered and bruised but a better, stronger, MORE PRINCIPLED Democracy.

I have hope.

It’s Time For “Benefit Of The Doubt” Journalism To Be Put To Sleep

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Dear American Main Stream Media:

I’m going to give you “the benefit of the doubt” here and assume that the REASON you employ “benefit of the doubt” journalism isn’t because you’re malicious assholes but because you suck at your jobs.  While I know that, on the surface, “benefit of the doubt” journalism is just you trying to be fair, you’ve confused “trying to be fair” with being a total moron.

If you walked into a room with no knowledge of the room itself or anything that’s gone on inside of it, you would be justified (and even applauded) for NOT drawing any conclusions about the room (or what’s happening in it) until you’ve learned enough TO justify whatever conclusion you reach.  In that instance, you SHOULD “give the benefit of the doubt” — because there is doubt.

However.  If you’d been in the room many times before… knew most of the people “in” the room and “why” they were in it (in order to do…), you wouldn’t have many doubts about the room; you’d have context for the room.  You’d know enough to NOT give the benefit of the doubt — cos you’d have no doubt.  I believe in journalism it’s called “background”.

It’s my understanding  (and I’m not a journalist by trade though I’ve become a “quasi-journalist” via Life Path (I’d heartily recommend my series BLUNT TRUTHS at Weedmaps — even if I wasn’t completely and totally biased) that background is supposed to “inform” the writer’s view — give it nuance, detail, flavor — and context. The kind of context that would make giving someone like, say, Donald Trump, the “benefit of the doubt” foolish.  Or stupid.  Or naive..

Or complicit?

The “benefit of the doubt” is what that frog blithely swimming in that slowly heating water gives to the guy in the chef’s hat.  A time will come however when that frog won’t give the chef the benefit of the doubt anymore — but only because the frog will be dead (boiled alive) and on its way to someone’s dinner plate.

Revealed: The Secret 2020 GOP Health Care Plan: “TrumpCare PICK-AN-ORGAN”

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

It’s no secret. Republicans leak like a sieve. Or an old guy’s pecker.  So – without any further ado — here’s the GOP’s Top Secret Health Care Plan — Trump-Care ‘PICK-AN-ORGAN’: The Health Care ‘Plan’ designed for and by Trumpanistas.

Who wants to pay for health care YOU won’t ever get — or “might not” ever need?  Only a schmuck pays for other people, amiright?

Think of it THIS WAY:  You have lots of organs.  What are the chances any will ‘go south’ on you during your lifetime?  Your lungs?  Probably not — unless you smoke.  Your kidneys — You have two — you’re playing with house money.  Your heart?  Well, okay — that one could be a problem but if your heart’s going south on you — you’re pretty much toast anyway, right?

The point is, Trumpanistas, you’re too smart to INSURE organs you don’t need to — or are worth the risk NOT to insure.  And that’s why you’ll love ‘TrumpCare PICK-AN-ORGAN’ —

Pick An Organ Front Card

LUNGS

07_Organs_Lungs_Front.pdf_1600x

Odds are nothing will happen to either of em.  But you want to play it safe — so we offer options to allow YOU to decide:  Insure Neither Lung, One Lung or Both Lungs!

See?  Easy!  Now, of course, the trick is, if you insure just one?  Ya better hope like hell you insured the correct Lung — the one that’s gonna be needing insurance…

 

LET’S TALK INTESTINES!

human-intestines-sciepro

If you’re like the average Joe, you have LOTS of this stuff inside ya.  You have intestines to spare.  In fact, you have so much intestine you even have two kinds (I know — weird, huh?)   But do you really need to insure both?  Do you really need to insure ‘ALL’ of it?

And what about your APPENDIX?  You don’t even use it — hell you haven’t used it in millions of years.  Only an idiot insures something he can’t use — amiright?

 

I KNOW THAT’S MY LIVER BUT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ‘GREEN’ THING?

cartoon-of-human-liver-and-gallbladder-vector-7563173The Truth is — Outside of your heart and lungs, your stomach and your anus, you haven’t a clue how any of your plumbing works.  You know you HAVE a Liver and you remember somebody lecturing you once about alcoholism while you were passed out in a drunken stupor but that was so long ago.

Be that as it may — This is probably you:  “What in hell’s name is that green thing — and please don’t say I have one…!”

Yeah, you have one all right — and it costs a BOMB to insure it — IF you insure it…

 

YOUR SPLEEN — 1-2-3-ANSWER QUICKLY:  ‘WHAT’S IT DO?‘

human-spleen-visceral-surface-synthesizes-antibodies-53319933

 

Not a goddamned clue, amiright (and “The spleen ‘spleens’ ain’t it”)?

Here – we’ll even show you a spleen and point out all its bits.  Does THAT help?  No?

And you want to insure this WHY?

 

 

 

AND THEN THERE’S THIS ORGAN…

cerebro-humano

Insuring brains is expensive.  In fact, it’s SO expensive, you’d have to be crazy to pay the freight.  So why bother.

TrumpCare ‘PICK-AN-ORGAN’: ‘Hey — look at all the money YOU just saved!’

 

Every Day, I Feel More & More Hopeful; Here’s Why…

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

I’ll own it straight up: between a mood stabilizer & copious amounts of THC (we’re talking “COPIOUS”), I walk around most days in a state of perpetual bliss. But I do not, for two seconds, ever forget that I live in a shithole of a world. I live in the most fucked up times imaginable.

I live during World War Three.

Yeah — WWIII — I have a sneaking suspicion that, once the smoke has cleared, we’ll realize this whole experience has been a cyber war (or an disinformation war — same difference) being waged on us principally by Russia (but with “assists” from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and probably Israel, too).

What we thought was “just how life is” will turn out to be Historic. Historical. History On The Hoof. Lucky us.

But, just as things swing to the negative, they can’t stay there. Everything cycles. Nothing remains stagnant. Not for long in the great scheme of things. The swing back in the other direction is already a happening deal. The intensity of the swing back in our direction will be in direction relation to the swing in that direction.

Caveat — we don’t know yet how massive the swing was in “THAT” direction. We think it was bad. We have no idea how bad. We were swinging wildly toward outright authoritarianism. The Republican party has completely surrendered whatever ideals it had to just plain holding on to power for power’s sake.

Well — no power, no money — I imagine they saw it as a package deal. They weren’t wrong.

But the same reason the Republicans & conservatives felt compelled to cheat & even commit treason to hold onto power is the reason I feel hopeful: Demographics.

Republicans & conservatives fear America’s shifting demographics. While they tell themselves that THEY are American Exceptionalism, they’re dead wrong. America IS exceptional because of its diversity. Such diversity from so many cultures in one place — that never happened before on a grand scale (it did before in places like, say Baghdad from 800 – 1100 when, being an open city, ideas from all over flourished). Rome benefited from getting influences from its far-flung colonies. Growing diversity means extinction to a party of White Christian Men.

If not “extinction” then Zero Political Power. Ah! There’s the rub!

It comes down to political power. Who has it — and who’s acquiring it? The Culture of Old Christian White Men had it — and Everyone Else In America is in the process of acquiring it. That’s what’s happening all around us. Being as women and people of color make up a lot of that “Everyone Else” who’s been out of power, that spells the worst news imaginable for Old Christian White Men.

Trumpism is Republicanism is Conservatism. I’ve said here before and will say again. I KNOW what Progressives want — it’s right in our name: we want PROGRESS. We want people to “progress”. We want the most people to do the best they possibly can — and believe that will bring the most prosperity and happiness to the widest possible part of our population. It won’t be cheap. But investing in people almost always returns handsomely on that investment. It’s greed & conservatism that wants to gaze at the cash in its pocket — and screw the people.

Conservatism — as it’s name says — wants to “conserve”. Not what will be — but WHAT WAS. In the past. When White Christian Men were the alpha dogs and everyone else was their bitch. Conservatives want to conserve THAT. If I’m wrong, please correct me. What ARE conservatives trying to “conserve” if not the past?

The last election wasn’t “The Blue Wave”. It was the Blue Wave’s leading edge. Having tasted political power, more and more women and POC will step forward, run for office or just vote. The more Americans vote, the more progressive we are. Because we’re so diverse.

Even if the republicans “could” stifle the Mueller Report (they can’t), the numbers are completely against them. Women are already outraged at conservatism’s treatment of them. Just wait till the Jeffrey Epstein story really catches fire — and the Big Names he’s been protecting start getting aired.

Wanna see outrage & moral indignation?

I am hopeful BECAUSE so many women are so outraged. I am hopeful BECAUSE of their oral indignation.

I am hopeful because FINALLY America’s women — and our people of color — OUR DIVERSITY — are coming center stage and TAKING the political power they should have been given long, long ago.

What Republicans Forgot: INTEGRITY Matters

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Regardless of how we’re all physically ‘born’, we all arrive in this world with 100% of our Integrity intact. Whether or not we get to the end of our lives with it STILL intact — that’s entirely up to us.

The ‘thing’ about Integrity is, it’s an ‘all or nothing’ proposition. Ever meet someone with 99% of their Integrity? What’s up with the 1%?

Our Integrity is iron — yet destructible as gossamer.

When set and kept at 100% it should be seen as inviolable. An impenetrable Force Field of Righteousness, built on facts & open-eyed analysis of those facts & The Truth. That’s the iron.

The gossamer is anyone turning off the Force Field to entertain offers. Even if you opt to ‘stay pure’ — you entertained offers. You even allowed for the ‘appearance’ that you were for sale. Integrity can never ever EVER be for sale. Integrity popped — like a soap bubble. Made of gossamer.

Lying instantly destroys Integrity. Allowance for lying destroys Integrity. Acceptance of lying destroys Integrity. One always has to ask ‘WHY?’ Why lie to begin with? Why’s the Truth ‘problematic’?

In the case of the Republican Party — they’ve been lying to us because they recognized as the Reagan years ended that electoral politics would not favor them going forward. The demographics were already trending completely against them (had more Americans voted regularly, that distinction would have been clearer a lot sooner). The only means to keep power for a few more generations was via the Judiciary.

Or — the Kochs reasoned apparently — one could rewrite the Constitution and make White Christian Male hegemony PERMANENT. To do that they’d need 37 states — so they could convene a new Constitutional Congress. That was very definitely in the Koch Bros sites. The last election — where Democrats took back 7 statehouses — destroyed that plan; the Kochs were within ONE STATEHOUSE. For reals.

The majority of Americans do not want what the Koch Bros want. That’s probably because the majority of Americans are not white, Christian men. But, of course, ya can’t exactly sell that come election time. So the Kochs find themselves politicians — Republicans — who are willing to lie.

And there goes their Integrity.