Well, we’ve hit the long stride of a poisonous political season once again.  All of the Left and Right Wings beat and flap so hard that they end up broken. Opinions are televised and spread around the world as though they were actually well researched,  fact-checked Journalism.  (It’s all spin bullshit by the way).  Journalism is a term that has been raped and beaten bloody since the dawn of the word blog.  Let me be crystal clear.  This is a blog.  I am a former journalist.  I got out of journalism because it’s not my end-of-the-line dream job.  I wanted to grow up and be a filmmaker… sigh.   However, I hold television, radio, and print journalism in a very near and dear place, stitched into the fabric of my very soul.  Journalism is truth.  Journalism should be stronger than all of the vitriolic, flammable headlines that these attention seeking “news outlets” set before your eyes on social networks and all the like.  Social Networks are modern day High School gossip groups and old-lady-sewing-circles.  Much of what you will find on these various sites is an astounding level of ignorance and damning opinions spread by a rumor mill of fame seekers.  People find easy methods to spread lies when it will benefit them, and it is now YOUR job to research and fact check these statements before you swiftly stick your name and reputation upon them by spreading them around with the swift click of a mouse.
Journalism is dying and the collective idiocy of America is swelling to a level of mind rattling self-destruction.  Rome was once an unrivaled world power.  Now it is a story upon the pages of history books.  It’s old stone structures still pay homage to a time long gone.  Rome collapsed on itself because it became too lazy, too self-important, and the people allowed its Government to blind them and force feed them lies and broken promises.  Rome fell.  America will fall, and it will be our own faults because we’ve grown too fat and complacent to do anything about it.  The First Amendment Right was given to the people so that we could hold those in power accountable for their actions and not be persecuted or silenced by the self-important cronies that governed us.  The First Amendment was written into our country’s Constitution because our forefathers wished to learn from history.  This country was founded on a set of well balanced ideals and freedoms, simply because there were those that were tired of being force fed injustice.  They wanted to make certain that if we built a new country and a new governing body that there would be a separation of powers and those powers could be kept and put in check.  So, if you’re pissed off about taxation, healthcare, unemployment, and a general American Malaise, you need to be angry at the correct people.  People always want to point the finger at one person.  So far all they’ve done is bitch and complain about the President.  I’ve got news for you.  The President of the United States of America is trying to fix things.  He’s trying to make things better and put things in motion to pull us out of this downward spiral started by fiends and pimps of Wall Street and the Upper Class 1%.  Guess who doesn’t give a shit about changing these things?  Congress.  All I hear is, “We need this, there are ways to fix this, but Obamacare isn’t the answer.  Wealthy Americans Create jobs, taxing them would drive us deeper into this depression (where are these jobs they’re creating?). “  And then they politely decline to give any other solutions.  If you don’t have a better solution then please don’t stand in the way of progress.  If you’re not going to stick it out there and bring your own idea to the table, then I don’t want to hear you bitching and complaining about how things need to be fixed.  It’s the hot button issues that are the most obvious.  Fair Taxation.  American Jobs.  Health Care.  Civil Rights… And MOST OF ALL Campaign Contribution Reform.  Get educated, people.  The Republican Majority Congress has stood in the way (every step of the way) of the current President trying to change our country for the better.  If it were a Democratic Majority, I would be angry about the same thing.  Your Senators and Representatives are the ones to blame for for this stagnant pace.  Unfortunately, today we are simply stretching a practiced smile across our face, rolling over and allowing those injustices to take place again and again and again and again.  Make no mistake, those voted into office to serve and represent the majority of people that voted them into office are only out for themselves.  They may talk a good game, but they are bought and sold by corporations with deep pockets and their ears have grown deaf to the cries of plight and suffering. They serve a political agenda and no longer hold service to all of those Americans that count on them to do what is right.  Why did Rome Fall?  There are adherents to single factors, but more people think a combination of such factors as Christianity, decadence, lead, monetary trouble, and military problems caused the Fall of Rome.  Sound familiar?  What?  Why yes, with an exception of “lead” those are all issues that America is dealing with RIGHT F#<KING NOW.  When I was growing up as a young boy in Kansas and later in Mississippi, I wasn’t political.  I was patriotic.  I believed that America was the greatest place in the Universe.  Yes, the Universe.  I was lucky enough to be born in the United States of America.  I wore it with pride.  I loved this damned country.   I was raised Presbyterian.  I liked Miracle Whip instead of Mayonaise.  These are things that I was taught or had been told, “This is the way things are.”  I wasn’t born in a country where being Muslim or Buddhist was the norm.  I grew up in a country based on Democracy (instead of being born and growing up in a country based on Communism or Socialism or even a Dictatorship).  That was all I knew because I was a child and that was the world that was presented to me.  As I grew into my own awareness, I began to see the world and its wonderful differences.  I was a “yankee” growing up in a southern town.  I was different.  I spoke differently.  I had a strange name. I was treated differently.  I was picked on, bullied, humiliated… and this was just my first week at a southern public school.  I was told by other white children that black kids were different.  I was called a faggot (by other children who sure as hell didn’t know what that word meant or any other understanding of sexuality).  I was made to feel as though I didn’t belong – I was made to feel ashamed for not fitting in to the regular crowd.  I was 8 years old.  What the hell did I know about fitting in?  As children we want to be loved and accepted.  We are being molded.  We are ,hopefully, learning from others and the world around us.  We are discovering social nuances and how to make friends.  We are developing our personal tastes and dispositions found in the world and all it has to offer.  The initial introduction to the South left a bad taste in my mouth.  I began to loathe these backwater, ignorant, dirty,  inbred rednecks and their inability to speak the English language (much less even spell).  Their canned hate was fueling a fire of such disdain that I simply could not help myself.  I wanted to see them harmed.  I was the angriest 8 year old you had ever seen.   I suppose every child seeks justice… it’s why we fall in love with Superheroes.  These were the actions of Christian kids from Christian families that grew up in America and were taught these things from the beginning of their lives from their families.  Not from television.  Not from each other but from the adults and caretakers that mold them into young adults.  Christians are not all bad.  Southern Christians have a particular strain that is very hard to deal with if you don’t share the very same structure of faith that they spew up and down the Sunday aisle.  Southern Baptists held near and dear to the idea that they were going to Heaven and that anyone else that had not be “saved” by Baptism was going to hell.  Every other religion was wrong.  Every other strain of Christian religion was wrong.  This mentality (be it perhaps a misguided interpretation) fueled my search for a better answer.  How arrogant could we be to assume that God would only accept and save “US” (a collective us of ‘insert religion here’)?  I guess it was God’s plan that you be born in America, in this tiny one-stoplight Mississippi town so that he could save your soul and accept you back into Heaven when you die… or maybe people just feed you these ridiculous stories and ideals because your life is short, terrible, and meaningless and that if all of these rich and self-righteous bastards told you that there was something to look forward to once your miserable life was over, it might keep you calm and not burn the aristocrats in their silken bedsheets whilst they slept.  What do I know?  It’s not like I read history books or anything….  I knew the difference between right and wrong.  I knew that the twisted young minds spewing this nonsense were full of shit.  Ask any child when someone is full of crap and they will unequivocally show you the bullshit barometer. I didn’t buy into it.  I knew right from wrong.  Even with growing up Presbyterian, I understood the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  I didn’t like the way that it felt when I was picked on.  I didn’t like it when I was called names.  I didn’t like it when people that didn’t even know my name persecuted me because I didn’t share their beliefs of segregation and inequality.  So, I became friends with the intellectuals – which most of you know are artists, eccentrics, homosexuals, outcasts, and pretty much everyone you thought didn’t fit in in High School.  They took the time to understand and seek out those that had come before them.  Is it a common thread that nearly all of the successful and brilliant sculptors of change in the world were just a little bit strange?  They are the ones that paid attention to injustice.  They are the ones that pushed us to work beyond our self-built obstacles and boundaries in order to overcome our hatred, fear, and ignorance.  Without those that question the right and wrong of our ways, we would be blind and dumb and taking our little Soma daydreams in our pressed white pants and spreading rumors of the savages that live out in the wastelands beyond the cities.  We become complacent after we are told time and time again to be complacent – to just accept things the way that they are.  I can’t accept things at face value.  I refuse to.  My nature is to be curious, to ask questions, to play Devil’s Advocate and to poke holes in otherwise paper thin theory.  I want to make people think.  I’m not stating by any means that I have the ability to change minds.  Only the individual can change their mind… but there has to be a catalyst.  We should all be catalysts for change.  We should all see the good in each other.  We should all want to be better people and rise to the occasion.  We should stop trying to show each other how different we are from the rest of you and take a moment to realize that we’re all human.  We’re all the same material.  We all love, we all have emotions, we all come from somewhere, and we all have families (be they nuclear, friends, caretakers, or support groups).  We are all once young, we all grow old, we all die.  YOU ARE NOT THAT DIFFERENT FROM THE PEOPLE AND THINGS THAT YOU FEAR.  You can have your opinions, you have your tastes… but the moment you begin to self-righteously use them to hurt or harm someone else – you lose all credibility.  YOU’RE not better than THEM.  YOU are THEM.  So, remember, Jesus was persecuted and crucified for his beliefs.  A belief that was rooted strongly in that we should care and love one another.  Don’t presume to speak for God, especially when you’re just repeating what you heard someone else say.  When you persecute others for their beliefs, I can only assume the irony is lost on you.  I love Chick-fil-A and I totally support staying closed on Sundays… but when you start openly persecuting percentages of the population, you have to expect that being crucified in the public arena is the next natural progression.  Perhaps my upbringing is different.  I know bullshit when I see it… and I know better than to take it at face value.