El Gringoqueño

Dear God/Bush in Heaven save us from this awful torment.  We bow to your everlasting capacity and power to render unto us the bounty of your talents and treasures.

Okay, so that’s sarcasm.  I’ve been reading some blogs recently, and they all seem to be wailing and gnashing their teeth because Bush didn’t save the asses of the poor folks in New Orleans.  Now, I’m no fan of Bush as you know, but I can’t just sit idly by and listen to this drivel.

"Why didn’t he save us?!"

"Dear God, he’s abandoned us?"

"See, SEE?  How damned incompetent he is?"

Who do you think Bush is, your daddy?  Why give him that job title.  Nanny-in-chief.  Hail to the Protector. Who’s your daddy?  Why, Bush is your daddy.  Didn’t you know that?  I’m George "Rick James" Bush, Bitch!

Bah!  When will you people learn pick up what is left of your broken free-will and put it to use.  See somebody without water?  Go find some for them.  See someone without food?  Go seek it out for them.  Need to have a problem solved?  Solve a problem first. 

Look, we’re only going to get out of this alive if we pull together and act.  Don’t wait for the Man to come save your asses.  You’ve been living at his behest for too long, when will you stop giving your souls to him?

He doesn’t deserve your devotion or your wrath.  The two go together like peaches and cream.

Yesterday was a weird day to say the least, an odd confluence of events that left me feeling nostalgic. 

I had been following the Michael Jackson trial with a combination of revulsion, sadness, and hope; revulsion because of how far he’s fallen, how weird and repulsive he has become, sadness for a broken man, broken lives, and an uncertain future, and hope that a beloved figure from my youth wouldn’t end up being a total lie.  

You see, I didn’t want Michael Jackson to be guilty.  I didn’t want that man who made such great songs throughout his life to be something so horrible as to make his entire life a lie.  I didn’t want my youth to be trashed.  He’s gotten weirder and weirder throughout his career, but it’s been in discrete steps.  I can deal with that.  Okay, between "Off the Wall" and "Thriller" he got a nose job.  That’s okay, I guess.  Between "Thriller" and "Bad" he became white.  Okay, nose job, white, maybe something else.  It’s weird, but okay.  And it went from there, little by little the man that was Michael Jackson became someone else… but slowly.

I still liked his music.  That was the one thing that remained constant.  It was always great stuff.

The accusations of pedophilia had been mounting throughout the 90′s, and I remember many a conversation with fellow Jackson fan and friend, John, "Do you think it’s true?"

"Nah, you see it’s – " And on we would go, justifying Michael’s behavior, weirdness, and a media and populace eager to tear down stars, thirsty for bloodsport only too common in our society of idol worship.

It reminded me of conversations that I had with friends in the latter half of the 70′s and on into the 80′s throughout the unrolling of George Lucas’s Star Wars. 

"Do you think Darth Vader is Luke’s father?" We would ask each other.

"Naw, man, no way.  Darth Vader is evil." And our eyes would go wide at the possibilities.  We would debate it for hours.  It consumed us as we waited what seemed an eternity for Return of the Jedi.  Three years is an eternity to a 10 year old. 

I guess in some ways yesterday was too bizarre for words.  I silently cheered that Michael Jackson was declared Not Guilty.  My heart beat in fear before the verdict was read, not for Michael Jackson, but for my youth, my ten year old self, for pureness, passion, and love.  If Michael was just another sick twisted bastard, what can a child believe in?  Are we all to become jaded, cynical, and empty at such a young age?  Is there any place for a child to find refuge in the pure and the clean? Does everything always have to soiled with the muck and sludge of our failures, our inadequacies?  Is there anything pure and noble left for which to strive?

Laura, Olaia and I watched Return of the Jedi last night.  Laura and I had finally gone to see Revenge of the Sith and afterward had undertaken the trek through the first three movies.  It was weird watching them again, blasts from the past.  Olaia watched them with us, full of questions about who was bad, why they were bad, who was good, why that guy was trying to kill that guy etc. 

So we were watching Return of the Jedi last night and Yoda was on his deathbed.  I looked over at Olaia and she was crying.  Tears were welling up in her eyes as Yoda lay dying.  "Daddy, why does Yoda have to die?"

"Because he is old, Olaia.  It’s okay, Yoda is going to be Luke’s guardian angel." She focused on that and seemed to be take heart.

When the movie was over, she came to me and gave me a hug.  "Daddy, I loved that we watched that movie together.  I really liked it."

"You are the sweetest little girl in the whole world.  I’m glad too."

And I basked in the warmth and glow of my daughter’s innocence, her pureness, her faith. 

I sit here reflecting on my own.  Maybe, just maybe I have retained a portion of my youth today, or if not real, at least I have plausible deniability, and I’m gonna go with that.

Why oh why is the world like this? I was listening to the bizarre account of the two little girls who where stabbed in Illinois. The suspect/culprit is the father of one of the two. How could it be? How could a person become so enraged that they would kill their own child. Obviously the answer is that this person is broken, a broken human, aberrated and twisted by a lifetime of apathy, violence, and despair.

What is it about our society that crafts these wackos? They are works of beautiful twisted art, perfectly shaped from babes to fulfill their seeming lifelong purpose to go out in a blaze of violence and destruction.

Remember the runaway bride? It was so long ago now, and I don’t give a crap what her name was, I don’t even remember much about her particular case. It is lost to me lo these many days. What I do remember of the incident was that I’m sure she was mad at somebody. There was anger, displaced resentment against, I can only imagine, her parents and their relentless pressure for her wedding to be perfect, her husband to be perfect, for her to be perfect. She had been arrested and convicted twice for shoplifting. Her family was wealthy, upstanding, but they’d demoralized her, belittled her, drove her insane with their control, her church’s control, her community’s control. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" She acted out in the only way she didn’t know how. She flailed and writhed to cause them pain in the way that gave her control. I want to hurt them, she screamed to herself. She didn’t care about consequences. She was not thinking. She just wanted to hurt them because it was the only thing that she felt she could do.

Fight or flight. Let’s do both, shall we?

So back to Zion, Illinois. Let’s paint a picture of this guy Mr. Hobbs and his life. He was born into poverty, possibly lower middle class. His parents struggled all their lives. Dad was an abusive type. He worked long hours at a menial job. He resented his lot in life… these damn kids, this damn job, and his meager life of anonymity. So he drank. The alcohol helped him not care. When he’d smack his son around, he didn’t feel a thing. Damn kids, clean up your goddamned room! Pick this shit up! Your mother’s too soft on you. And he’d whack ‘em, whack ‘em good. When he wasn’t hitting his kids he was just gone.

Sooner or later, Jerry started getting into trouble in school. First he’d just pick on those littler than himself. He was the classic troubled bully. As he got older, he got into more and more trouble with the authorities, both school and otherwise. He dropped out of school.

You should be able to figure out the rest from here. When he got into a dispute with anyone or anything, he lost it. He’d start lashing out with whatever was handy. He didn’t care. His rage flooded his senses, brought back his powerlessness. Somewhere deep down he remembered the lessons of his father.

They are bringing it on themselves. Bitch doesn’t listen to me. She’s a fucked up bitch, telling me what to fucking do.

She screams that she’ll kick him out, or she’ll leave him, or call the police. She used that threat a lot. She used it like a blunt object. I’ll call the fucking police, she screamed.  She doesn’t deserve to be treated this way, she’d say.

Goddamnit… treat HER this way. What about how you’re sucking the life out of me. You – you’re doing this to ME, fuck you, bitch, I don’t give a fuck how you feel you deserve to be treated. You’re a whore and bitch, and – and.

He was cooling down in county lockup. He wasn’t so enraged now. The bruises from his tussle with the cops who responded to the domestic disturbance were starting to throb. Four of them had piled on. They seemed to take pleasure is roughing him up. "Hit a woman, didcha, tough guy. You’re a big fucking tough guy, hittin’ a woman. You hit kids too?" He rubbed his shoulder where they’d wrenched his arm high up on his back in a chicken wing. They’d clubbed him in the kidneys too. Damn, that hurt. He couldn’t sit comfortably. Was he still mad? He hurt, but he’d calmed down. It was out of his hands now. Remorse started to creep in. Damn it, he didn’t mean to lose control. She was just – doin’ it again. A twinge of rage lit off like a spark plug.

He was sentenced to 18 months in state prison. This was the final straw. The judge could see where this was going. This guy needed to know that society was serious and that he’d done wrong. Justice decided that he spend some time outside of the boundaries of society, an adult time out, so to speak.

Jerry, fully intended to change his ways. He thought about it every day. He wrote crudely spelled sentiments to his wife. He loved her and looked forward to turning it around. He saw all the good in his life. It was modest, but they had a little house, a beautiful daughter, and he could always get some work. It’s not like they needed much.

The day came that Jerry had waited for. Here was his big chance to start over, to take control of his life and live it. His wife accepted him with open arms. She’d fallen in love all over again, mostly. Jerry, it seemed, was a new man with a new outlook.

Mother’s Day 2005

"Jerry, don’t worry about it. It’s okay. It’s Mother’s Day. I don’t want to fight about this. I’ll punish her tomorrow. Can’t we just have a special day without yelling?"

"No, she took that money, she’s got to answer for it. I won’t have any daughter of mine growing up a thief."

"Look, can we just drop it?"

Little Laura pranced out the front door with a nahnahnah to greet her friend and scamper off to play. There it was again. His blood began to boil. She’d sassed him. They’d all sassed him, made him feel powerless., revealed his impotence. Nahnahnah, there’s nothing you can do, you stupid son-of-a-bitch with your limp dick and ugly face, they seemed to say. His face twisted up almost unrecognizably and he charged out after her. I’m going to drag her back to the house by her hair if I have to. She’s not going to get away with this. I’m the man around here. She’s the kid. She’s got to listen to me. He flew down onto the path where the two girls were laughing and giggling. "Come here," he yelled. "You’re going home."

"Mom, said I could go out," she retorted.

"I say you can’t, now get over here."

"I’m not coming and you can’t make me. Mom said I could stay out. Leave us alone." and the girls turned to leave.

First he slapped her, then grabbed her hair and threw her down. Her friend had a small pocket knife and stabbed at Jerry to protect her friend. She didn’t know any better. She thought she was protecting her like on TV. A knife?! raged Jerry’s mind. You’d try to stick me with a knife you little bitch. What the fuck kind of parents do you have. And he grabbed her wrist twisting it unnaturally. She yelped in pain as Jerry snatched the knife and stabbed it back at her. Stick me, will you! He slashed and slashed and slashed. His daughter’s horrified face looked to him like contempt. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!! He silenced her disdain. That’ll teach her.

As soon as it was over, the rage left him and the weight of what he’d done came down. It was only a matter of time, but he was strangely calm. It was all out of his hands now. He was free.

"Man, I am so sick of this love affair with the Pope. Sheesh, everyone wants to just bow down and worship this guy like he's done so much or something. What has he done?"

Laura, who is a fan of the Pope, answers, "He's reached out to other religions, healed some long suffering wounds inflicted long ago. He's reached out to the peoples all around the globe, and held firm on moral conviction."

"Yeah," I agreed, "He denounced apartheid, and it is said is partly responsible for its fall by applying political pressure. They like to give him partial credit for helping end communism in the world too with his intervention in Poland. So I guess he's stood up for equality and justice during his papacy."

"Yes," she agreed.

"So how come he doesn't foster equality in his own organization? Over fifty percent of his flock is considered a second class citizen. Women are excluded from virtually every facet of Church leadership, from local to national to international levels. Woman serve a subservient roll to priests, bishops, and are non-existent in the official Vatican power structure. The Pope pointed out the speck in his neighbor's eye, but failed to see the timber in his own. Now I can't necessarily blame him for all this, after all he's just following Church doctrine handed down to him for centuries, and he's human. In effect, he's just going with the flow, following the tried and the true. You can't blame someone for that, I guess. He implemented faithfully the tenants of the Catholic Church handed down for centuries."

Laura nodded, knowing I was setting her up for another round of ranting.

"Let's recap, shall we? Under the Pope we have the following issues:

1. Falling western church population, with growth in Africa and other third world regions.
2. Falling membership in the religious orders, 40,000 Jesuits 20 years ago has fallen to 20,000 today, all during the Pope John Paul's reign. Why? An increasing number of parishes no longer have full time priests. There is a critical shortage of ordained religious servants.
3. Church closings throughout the western world: my hometown of St. Louis is currently going through some ugly infighting concerning assets, closings, and consolidation.
4. Church sex scandals: one of the most horrific and damaging scandals to ever break anywhere anytime. You think the Spanish Inquisition was bad? Try inflicting the same torment on children and remaining quiet about for decades. How long has the Pope been Pope? - Long enough for him take some responsibility for sure. I didn't know or I wasn't involved have never been nor will they ever be excuses.

You name it, and the Church has stumbled on it or is doing it poorly. Don't blame the parishioners, blame the leadership. It's always the leadership's fault.

So if you were the board of directors of, hmmm, let's say, Hewlett Packard, and say Carly Fiorina had a strategy to increase profits over a 6-10 year period, and say she didn't increase them fast enough or lost a little bit of share. Well, you'd take a hard look at her, and you might fire her, right? Guess what? When you see your share fall, and when corporate scandal reigns, and the company does poorly, you fire management. A lot of the time, you hold them criminally responsible. And I don't know about you, but I've never heard a CEO claim that he was just doing what his predecessor was doing. 'Um, I thought using my personal secretary as a sexual perk was okay. I mean, hell, all the other CEO's did it. Lots of low interest personal loans to myself? Well, we've done that for decades.'

Well, guess what, Mr. CEO, the 1980's and the 1990's where great. Profits were up, people were getting rich. Hell, the board got rich on the stock. But Mr. CEO, it's the 2000's and we ain't in Kansas anymore. You have to be able to react. You have to be able to adapt to a changing landscape. You've got to make hard decisions. What the hell do we pay you for, huh?

So I say the same thing to the Pope. What the hell have you been doing over there in your walled city while the Roman Catholic Church has been falling apart? You've been issuing decrees on birth control, abortion, secularism and burying your head in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality oblivious to the creaky rusty corrupt bucket of bolts that is shedding it's shit all over the road. You issue a memo, take a drive in your Pope-mobile, or make a trip to have throngs of poor Catholics in third world countries come in droves to weep and feint at the site of your holiness? Bah! You're an idiot, and you got the basic stuff wrong, very wrong. You've been denying half your flock the possibility of renewing the face of the Earth, simply because they don't have a penis. What kind of shit is that? I would have said, grow a pair, but at this point, it ain't gonna happen.

The Pope should've spent eighty percent of his time with the problem children of the worldwide Church, eighty percent of his time on the tough issues, eighty percent of the time going after the lost sheep. He can then spend twenty percent of the time tending to his flock of believers. Wasn't that Jesus's message? - The sheepherder, upon losing one of his flock leaves the rest to go and search for it. The prodigal son? Wasn't this the lesson? I understand the Pope is beloved by those that are with him, but what of the lost sheep, the disillusioned Catholics, those for whom this bloated bureaucracy has ceased to be relevant? It's easy to preach to those who love you. This Pope's challenge was to preach to those that had gone astray, the fallen away Catholics, the disillusioned, the angry, the hurt, and the lost.

Mr. Pope, I will grant that you've done more than your cowardly predecessors. You've perhaps done a satisfactory job these 27 years, but I don't expect a satisfactory job from "Jesus's representative on Earth." I expect an extraordinary job. Mr. Pope, this is one Catholic that won't miss you a bit. I wish we could have fired you a long time ago, but Pope for life is the way it goes. Ain't tenure a bitch? You can't fire the incompetent, and they hang on long after they've ceased to be even moderately productive. History seems to be whitewashing your papacy for political reasons (especially those shills at Fox News), but I know what you did not do. Shame on you for your inaction and blindness.

I'm a bit scared for who's coming next though. Might we go from bad to worse?

Be afraid, be very afraid.

War is ugly. War should be ugly. I watch the Bush administration trying to contain the fire, batting it back as they try to save Mosques, civilians, trinkets within the house that is on fire. The house is burning, you moron. You’ve got to put it out. If bad guys are using a Mosque to store weapons, the Mosque is already gone. Level it it and anything in it, around it, underneath it. If a block is harboring bad guys, take it out, the entire block, eliminate the fire, lest it spread and burn everything else. Put it out. Fuck the civilians, they should get the fuck out if they want to live. The house is on fire, get the fuck out, get as far away as possible, take your kids, your family. Don’t go fucking buy fruit in the middle of a fire fight and cry about your little girl getting shot through the head. Get the fuck out of the burning house, because it’s coming down. Once the fire’s out and the firefighters have gone, THEN you can come back and put your life back together.

Does that sound terrible to you? God, I hope so. The goal of war is to put an end to it as quickly as possible, lest we become comfortable with it. War must be prosecuted with extreme prejudice but no malice. War is terrible, war is not something that should be entered lightly. I’m sorry, but “credible intel” sounds too much like a hunch to me. YOU DON’T GO TO WAR ON A HUNCH. Hunches are for TV gumshoes. They have no place in foreign or domestic policy. I’m starting to wonder if we’ve learned anything since Vietnam. You can’t manage a war and you sure as hell can’t manage a fire… you can only put it out or let it burn.

It reminds me of a scene. Picture this. There was a rising star in the business community. He had even done pretty well monetarily, well enough, in fact to have been invited to play polo at the club. Look at him, they said. He’s young, so much promise. He’s bright, good looking, and doing well for himself. We shall invite him to the club to play polo.

So our young businessman dedicated himself to practicing a bit of polo. He was a decent horseman, but he’d never played before. He dutifully hired a trainer and secretly practiced on the weekends hitting balls, riding, turning etc. He was sure he’d impress the crowd and the blue-bloods with his ability.

The day of the polo outing arrived and he was out in front immediately, whacking balls, shouldering into riders, shoving, pushing, yelling. He’s going to crush them, CRUSH them and win! WIN! WIN! He’s went for that prize with everything he had, that little white ball bouncing around in the mud. He never took his eye off the little white ball.

At the end of the day he’d bested the field with his take no prisoners attitude, showed his metal and that he was superior stock, better than the rest, worthy of inclusion.

An older gentleman made his way to the club house to find our young friend, where he rested his hand upon his shoulder and said, “Dear boy, a polo match isn’t about the polo.”

I watched the testimony and questioning of Secretary Rumsfeld today
and it became crystal clear to me that his people just dropped his
pants. Either he’s not paying attention to what’s going on, or he’s
pissing people off who could be his friends. Somebody leaked this
investigation. Maybe he wasn’t managing the situation closely enough,
and it just "got out", or his people decided that going over his head
to the public would embarrass him. Either way it shows a failure of
leadership and he’s got to go.

When I was mobilized in Puerto Rico there were numerous
problems with the facilities, training, and planning. Even before my
unit had gotten there, there were news stories about the conditions,
strict restrictions on free time, and severe morale problems. After
having had the pleasure of spending a few weeks there, and hearing
about soldiers vandalizing toilets and showers, I became convinced it
was a failure of leadership. Demming said that 85% of your problems are
management and only 15% come from labor. This to me was never clearer
when the commander of the brigade showed up one day to "lay down the
law" to all of the bad little soldiers who weren’t playing nice. He
promptly got back into his car and drove his fat ass home to his cozy
house. My point is this: soldiers will endure the harshest conditions,
the strictest rules, and the worst possible conditions if they know
their leadership cares, is in it with them, and will sacrifice
everything for them.

Good officers know soldiers are the ones who fight, are the
ones who sacrifice, and are the ones who die. They are the point of the
sword. We officers wield it. Would we blame the sword for our pathetic
failures? The sword was too heavy. The sword wasn’t sharp enough. The
sun was in my eyes. I’ve heard it all, and you know what? It’s a poor
officer, Secretary of Defense, or President who blames soldiers for
problems.

It should tatooed on the heads of all leaders: "My
success is due to this fine sword. These is no equal to it in all the
world." and conversely: "My failure is mine alone. I did not do honor
to this sword. In more capable hands it would have yielded victory."

The failures in Iraq go all the way to the top. They go all the
way to the cowboys in charge, who believe a big sword makes them
somebody. It is the unconquerable soul of man, and not nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory.

And Secretary Rumsfeld does not understand that the sword HE
wields is a human sword. The sword is not made of metal, Apache’s,
F-16′s, Strykers, or any other technological "magic bullet." He has
forgotten, throughout his rampaging through the defense department, who
he works for, who’s the one fighting the war, who’s the one dying. He’s
forgotten, pissed off, trampled, belittled, and made a mockery of the
entire military.

And they fucked him. They fucked him hard.

Soldier’s will do that to you when you don’t have their respect.
Sure, heads will roll for not, "keeping this in-house,", but you can be
sure there’s an officer worth his salt staring Rumsfeld down saying,
"You can take me down, but I got you, you bastard. I got you!"

I’ve become increasingly distressed and appalled by the world climate, both for what this administration is trying to do and what everyone else is doing about it (nothing).

I saw a headline yesterday that read: "US Steps Up Diplomacy Efforts for War with Iraq." Does anyone but me see the horrific oxymoron there? Using diplomacy as a tool to consecrate war? Huh? Let’s try an exercise shall we? Every time you see the word WAR replace it with FIRE. And every time you see the word SOLDIER or ARMY replace it with FIREFIGHTER. If you do that, you will not be tricked into seeing something that ain’t there. Let’s use diplomacy to try to convince the world that it’s time to start a fire. Now that doesn’t make sense does it?

A fire is something you don’t want. A fire is a failure, whether it be electrical wiring, a space heater, an accident, or arson. In any of these cases, it’s obvious. You send in the firefighters to put it out. There’s the blaze, let’s put it out. We have to save what people we can, get them out, maybe lose some of our own lives in the process, but in the end we put the fire out and go back to the fire station.

If you see smoke, there’s probably a fire. You send in the firefighters. They put it out. Anything short of that you DO NOT send in firefighters. Let me repeat.

Firefighters fight fires.

Why do I need to say it again? Well, there’s this guy that thinks that firefighters must also fix electrical wiring, stop arsonists, make sure space heaters aren’t next to the drapes, and that people don’t let kids play with matches.

Inspectors inspect wiring to prevent fires. Police arrest arsonists. Manufacturers and good education help people prevent accidental fires from heaters. Parents watch their kids to make sure they don’t play with matches.

Soldiers fight wars.

Soldiers are not police. Soldiers are not parents. Soldiers are not inspectors. Soldiers are not babysitters. We only fight wars when there is one, when diplomacy has FAILED, when an accident has happened, or when an crazy man has done something horrible.

WE GO PUT IT OUT! Then we go home. We leave the job then to the UN (Police), Inspection Teams, International Aid organizations, and other specific international bodies.

Bosnia? We went in, we kicked ass (put out the fire), and then stood down. We now have troops as part of the UN peacekeeping force, but let me be clear. They are not fighting fires. They are firefighters working for the city government trying to see that no more fires break out in this fire torn area. Our soldiers are working for an international body and are NOT fighting a war. The US firefighting team is not there. The UN Police force IS there though, of which we are a member.

Is that clear?

So, let’s summarize. We can’t go into Iraq, until one of the following happens:

1. There is a fire. Saddam does something stupid.
2. There is smoke. Saddam does something stupid.

If neither of those things is the case, than the US CANNOT go in as itself, a great firefighting squad.

If there is imminent danger, kid playing with matches, passing them around, a space heater is dangerously close to a drape, a guy buys some gasoline and matches, or we notice that the electrical system is not up to code, then we send in inspectors, police, observers, and a construction crew to make repairs.

We CANNOT do those jobs, no more than a firefighter can wrestle an assailant to the ground, babysit the kids, and be the handyman that puts your house up to code.

Our soldiers stand ready to move at a moment’s notice. We pledge to put out fires whenever the fire house bell rings. We will put out a fire if one erupts. We will put it out quickly, with as little loss of life as possible, and we will do our jobs. But, we DO NOT like to stand idly by while our fire captain runs out of firehouse with a can of gasoline and a match calling to us as he scrambles out, "Hey guys, I’ll have some work for you in a minute."

Lots of things have been happening to us (most not so good) so most
of it’s my internal coping, trying to come up with a method for dealing
with life. It’s not so bad though, just hard.

I’d like to clamber out of the crucible for a little while. Don’t get
me wrong. This crucible that is Puerto Rico, life etc. has helped me
become a better person. That I firmly believe. It’s also shown me how
woefully lacking is the world in great people, people of conscience,
people of passion.

Why can’t all these world leaders, caught up in their petty little
differences just make a bold move? At the moment of such hate, anger,
and fear… just reach out and embrace them. Do something so outside
the box as to stun the world into peace. It’s all there for the asking.
It just takes someone to make the leap. Sigh, there I go again.

Anyway, sometimes things happen to you and although they make you
better you don’t wish for them again. Take boot camp for example, a
worthwhile venture, but not one I’d care to repeat. Same goes for
Puerto Rico… however, it’s given me perspective on hardship that I
wouldn’t otherwise have.

If I was Arafat or Sharon, I’d resign. They are the two biggest
obstacles of peace in the Middle East. Two big angry idiots defending
their houses of cards. Each CAN NEVER admit fault. My system is
impeachable and I will fight to the death for it, they scream at each
other.

Show me a person willing to kill for his system of beliefs and I will show you a person that does not believe them.

Each is so scared of pulling one single card. What happens when you
pull one single card from the house of infallibility? Were we ever
infallible to begin with?

Not that simple, you say? You can’t
just make bold moves like that and expect to get away with it? Hah, the
world IS that simple. It’s motivated by simplicity, bold deeds, people
who take action, and move with passion. What’s blocking the Mid East
from moving forward is one single thing, so simple that I imagine once
they figure it out the feeling stupid will nag them for generations.

Don’t preserve your way of life. Preserve your people. What good is a
way of life if everyone is dead? Think about your people, struggling,
dying. Think about the children dying in the streets, growing up with
no hope. Save them. Here’s what you need to do. Fall on your sword,
Arafat, Sharon. Do yourselves in so that your people will be stunned to
peace. Show them you are leaders. Show them they are more important
than anything. Show them that you have failed and aren’t afraid to
admit it. That’s what leadership is. It is leading. Simple really, eh?
Admit failure and get out of the way, and start building a house based
on your people instead of words and symbols.

Kill all the symbols, get out of the way.

I am thinking that all this makes perfect sense, and I’m frustrated
that no one is making any moves… just sticking to careful little baby
steps based on past actions, past failures. I would not seek actively
to have such hardship thrust upon me, but, I think, I’m ready. I feel
prepared to make a bold move, to accept something so impossible, so
undoable, so gross an undertaking that my younger self would have fled
in its face. I’ve been battling rats for some time… sometimes, I
think, I’m ready to take on a that dragon.

Have the "Under God" or don’t have it… it doesn’t really matter.
If you truly have no fear, then it shouldn’t matter. Not worrying about
"Under God" is not apathy, it is something that makes you strong.
People will recognize it and will search for a way out of the dark. The
dark can be a lot of places… not just non-belief in God. It is fear
and uncertainty which leads to selfishness, anger, hate.

The Message was simple. Have no fear. If you don’t fear, you
will find your salvation, which is to say, don’t worry about your
salvation. The problem with people who try to insert "WORDS" and
"SYMBOLS" into the collective conscienousness, is that they truly show
their fear. Same goes for those who fight to take them out You know
what, like I said, it doesn’t matter if the world is Godless. They
might just kill you…. but that wouldn’t change the Truth, would it?

The common theme is to just relax and be the kind of person
that God (insert your diety here) wants you to be… gentle but strong
and calm but firm. People recognise a person of principles and will
emulate accordingly. Jesus, didn’t wage lawsuits in Roman court to get
"Under God" placed in Roman children’s education.

He said, give to Cesaer what is Cesaer’s. That’s synominous with, dude, look, fight over words if you want, I’ve got work to do.