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When Evil Wins

Baseball is now entering one of its darkest times since the strike of 1994 and the Chicago Black Sox. A team from the Real Axis Of Evil has won the World Series. The Real Axis Of Evil, consists of the NY Yankees, the Dallas Cowbows, and the Atlanta Braves. Of course, even when evil does triumph, one must look for positives and silver linings less one is plunged into the depths of dispair. And there is one such positive we can draw from this World Series. By preventing the Phillies from winning the World Series, that member from the Real Axis Of Evil has maintained the Boston Red Sox, the epitome of all that is right and good in sports, as the sole leader in World Series wins for this century. Had the Phillies won the World Series, then the Red Sox would have had to share that lead. This shows that even when evil is permitted to win, in the end, it can be used to serve good.

One other positive we can take from this World Series is that if next year's World Series follows the pattern set in this 21st century, we will see a new champion next year and evil's reign, however horrible, will be brief.
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Obama, Palestine, And The Middle East

Below is a link to a lecture by Noam Chomsky regarding Obama and his policies in the Middle East. Opening remarks were made by Gilber Achar.and Tariq Ali.
 
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Is The War In Afghanistan Good?

Below is a link to an article that unmasks our war in Afghanistan. Though some might be tempted to think of the Afghan war as the good war in comparison with the Iraq war, Chris Hedges shows that this is not the case.
 
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Is Health Care A Right, Privilege, Or Barometer?

I had the privilege of participating in a campus panel discussion on health care. The following contains some reflections of that panel discussion.

I was originally assigned to represent the conservative view of health care. To defend the conservative side, I made an analogy between the Trojan Horse and policies that assume that health care is a right. That is, as appealing as such health care policies seem to be, inside such policies hide the enemies of America: foes of individual liberties/responsibilities, foes of the Constitution, and foes of the Free Market.

It is obvious that any approach to socialized medicine makes all dependent on others. We should note that, for a variety of reasons, we cannot say that all are dependent on all because not all members in society are in the position to contribute. But the idea that any of us should depend on others for our health care is repulsive to some because such a dependence means that those who are dependent are not pulling their own weight and that those who are providing for others are becoming indentured servants--as some see it. Thus, we should see the threat against individual liberties and responsibilities, noting that individual liberty and personal responsibility are two sides of one coin that any socialized or Universal Health Care approach poses.

Also hiding inside of the Trojan Horse of socialized or Universal Health Care are those who would attack the Constitution. That is obvious because there is nothing in the Constitution that assigns responsibility for health care to the Federal Government. Thus, for the government to take such a responsibility shows that the government  exceeded  its mandate and has violated the 10th amendment. That amendment says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The last enemy that is hiding in the Trojan Horse of socialized and Universal Health Care attacks the Free Market. The Free Market is where the individual excels to meet the needs of other individuals. The Free Market provides for our needs while not attacking individual liberty and responsibility. And though it's obvious that there are problems with our current Health Care System, putting the Federal Government in charge of fixing our health care problems is like taking poison to cure a serious illness. Rather than putting the government in charge, we should examine how our government is preventing the Free Market from meeting our needs.

After considering those points, I honestly couldn't argue that health care is a right. Perhaps the greatest argument that one could put forth regarding health care being a right is what if the majority of people oppose socialized or Universal Health Care? Could we argue that it is a right? I would find that difficult. But perhaps asking if health care is a right or privilege is asking the wrong question. That is because the answer to the question either requires society to or prohibits it from providing health care for all. The question itself removes socialized or Universal Health Care from the democratic process.

This leads us to ask what if we could determine our health care by using the democratic process, what would we choose and what would our choice say about us. Would we be seen as a society that puts a high value on human life or on something else? Such a question shows what our health care debate is about today. Our health care system is a barometer for how our society chooses to value human life. Though we would like to think that our society places a high value on human life, proving that is rather difficult. For just as a real belief in free speech is best shown by how one defends the speech rights those one disagrees with, placing a high value on human life is best shown by how a society provides for the least of its citizens. Health care provisions made for society's economically privileged citizens only shows how our society values privilege, self-sufficiency, and the Free Market--the something else. How we provide for those whose provision not only provides no payback but costs us something by requiring us to share shows how much we value people.

If what our current health care system could say about our values is not enough to move us to change, we should then consider what our health care system can mean to our future. Currently, only the economically privileged and those willing to undergo personal bankruptcy can receive adequate health care--though the latter group's health care service does not last and comes at too high a price. In addition, the number of those who are economically privileged is rapidly shrinking. Thus, we have a growing pool of workers whom Capitalism is leaving behind and forgetting. The employment status of many of these people has become stagnate. But not only has their state of unemployment become frozen, they have become insignificant. This was shown by the "liberal" presidential candidate of 2008, Barack Obama, who appealed not to those in the lower economic class but to the Middle Class and above. To borrow a Naomi Klein term, such people are becoming "surplus" people to our system. And the question that many of us who rely on the current system must ask ourselves is how do we expect surplus people to respect a system that shows no respect for them? And how can we who are economically privileged be innocent when we do not use our privilege to stand up for what Capitalism considers to be surplus people and work to change their status.

I did participate in the panel discussion but not as a conservative as I was originally assigned to do. One of the participants who was to represent the liberal side did not show up. So to balance the discussion, they assigned me to defend the liberal side--though to be precise, I am a leftist. I never did read the conservative statement that I had written. Rather, I stated that our health care policies act as a barometer for how our society values human life. Two of the conservatives in the panel agreed. They went on to state that part of the problem in our society is human greed and I could not have agreed more. But we did disagree with who the culprits were. They implied that the have nots who want their basic health care needs met are the guilty ones. In contrast, I believe those who are guilty of greed here are the haves who oppose health care reform because it would require them to share.

So that is what we are facing. What value does our society place on human life? How we treat the least in our society answers that question whether we like the answer or not.


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The Daily Show Takes A Road Less Travelled

The Daily Show acts as news therapy for our world of disfunctional "adult" news makers and reporters. This was especially true when last week, Jon Stewart interviewed Palestinian politician, Mustafa Barghouti, and American Jewish activist, Anna Baltzer, about working together to bring peace--btw, there are quite a few such coalitions. One protester actually had to be escorted out of the audience because, as in Star Trek VI, some oppose peace because they are threatened by it.

Below is a link to the full interview, the show only showed an time conscious edited interview, and a first hand account of the taping of the show.


The Daily Show and the Israel-Palestine Issue
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Democrats Give A Mixed Message On Hate Crimes

For more on the inconsistency, a euphemism here, of the Democrats on hate crimes, read the article linked to below:
Tags: hate crimes  
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Obama's Prize Is Bush's Fault

Students who do not do well on their exams will often ask if I curve grades. I almost always respond with a no. But now I can now send these same students to a very prestigious group that does curve grades, the Nobel Committee for the Peace Award.

People on the left are asking how in the world could anyone select President Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize? We ask this regardless of Obama's length in time in office. The answer comes back in what the 5 person committee saw as Obama's accomplishments--or more precisely, his initiatives. The list of his initiatives includes his emphasis on diplomacy as a way of settling current or potential conflicts, his engagement with the Muslim world, and his efforts to lessen the nuclear threat in the world. So his list of initiatives appears to be impressive.

But perhaps the biggest reason that Obama won the award is that he is not George W. Bush. That is, compared to what Bush had been doing for 8 years, what Obama has been doing for 9 months must be a miracle to the members on the Nobel Committee. Thus we have a Nobel Laureate who won, not because of what he has done, but because of the curve that was set by George Bush. After all, it was good ole George who ignored the Middle East until 9-11, initiated and prosecuted a war of aggression with Iraq and threatened another one with Iran, broke treaties in order to pursue the development of new nuclear weapons, and started a game of Armageddon Chicken with the Soviet Union by beginning to place BMD bases on Russia's border. With George having set the bar so low, any deviation that Obama brought must have be seen as manna coming from heaven. Unfortunately, peace requires much more than not imitating Bush.

If we could ask some John Pilger type questions, we might ask if Obama would have been awarded the Nobel Peace Award had one of the committee members been a Pakistani child whose parents were killed by one of Obama's drone launched bombs? Or would Obama been honored if another member of the committee had been an Afghanistan child who lost his or her family due to his escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Would Obama have received this Peace Prize if a member of the committee were a Palestinian child who lost his or her home or life to Israeli smart weapons after Obama gave assurances that he would not oppose their use? [1] Or what if that Palestinian child belonged to a family who either lost their home or access to water as Obama did not sustain objections to Israel's plans to increase settlements, would Obama have won?

Obama is now considering a further escalation of the war in Afghanistan and he has not withdrawn all troops from Iraq nor does it look like he will. He did show that he could talk politely to leaders whom the Bush Administration despised too much to even appear with in public. Does such protocol merit the Nobel Price for Peace or should he have received the Nobel Prize for Etiquette? How can a person who believes in American Exceptionalism receive a prestigious peace prize? Or how could a person who increased our already morbidly obese military budget win the prize for peace?

I am reminded of Chalmers Johnson's comparison of George W. Bush with Bill Clinton. Clinton, he said, "camouflaged" what he was doing while George relied on brute force.[2] Obviously, we are back to using camouflage with Obama. We could conclude that Obama should have won an international award for applying veneer rather than for working toward peace.

Certainly Obama is an improvement over George Bush or mini-George (a.k.a John McCain) but such does not merit the Nobel Prize for Peace. If we were to look at the down and dirty work of many activists who risk their lives while actually working for peace rather than for a establishing a more palatable empire, we would see that the recognition given to Obama dishonors the prize itself. Certainly we all hope that Obama can avoid future wars as well as end the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as work out a viable and just peace accord between Israel and Palestine. But we are nowhere close on any of these goals nor have we started down the right road. But we can at least say that Obama is not George Bush and perhaps that is why he won the award.


[1] http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/3227
[2] The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson, pg 255
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On Health Care, War, And Football

Perhaps nothings gives us a better picture of how both our media and two political parties try to control our views of the issues of the day than football. Here, I am specifically referring to the placekicker as he attempts to make an extra point or field goal. If his kick is long enough, then the only kicks that count are those that go through the uprights. Kicks that are either wide left or wide right are no good. And so we get a glimpse at how the media and our 2 political parties are coaching us as to what views to have and what views to bypass.

An example of the narrow range of choices we are given can be seen in the most recent presidential campaign as the candidates addressed the Iraq War. The view of the the "antiwar" candidate Barack Obama challenged the validity of the invasion and war by using business criteria. He claimed, and rightfully so, that the war was neither an efficient use of American resources nor was it effective in our fight against global terrorism. Thus, Barack claimed that invading Iraq was a foolish decision. Meanwhile, his opponent had only challenged the way in which our country was fighting the war. According to McCain, the invasion was a wise and even necessary choice, he felt that we just needed to change how we were fighting the war. So we the people were offered a very narrow range of options by our viable Presidential candidates regarding the war. Views that were waved off as being wide left were those that challenged both the morality and legality of the war while conservative isolationist views were counted as being wide right. And those who held such views, Democrats Kucinich and Gravel and Republican Paul, were marginalized during their parties' primaries. Nader's views were largely ignored because he has, in retribution for 2000, been considered to be irrelevant while even non-Presidential candidate, Reverend Wright, received scorn from much of the liberal media. With both Presidential candidates and the media placing the goal post in front of us, we were herded into accepting legitimate views. By coincidence, these views greatly benefited those who profit from the war.

Unfortunately for us, similar narrow ranges of solutions, with the same beneficiaries, are being presented to the American people on other issues as well. Our latest national effort to kick the ball through the uprights can be seen in our national debate on health care where the most radical option being presented to us is one that funnels more and more potential customers to the ones causing us so much trouble, our health care insurers. Those opposing President Obama's Health Care Plan want fewer regulations and even more reliance on the free market than what we currently have. Those who advocate a single payer system paid for by the government are said to be wide left and so they don't count even by their own political party. The putting of the free market and private sector on a pedestal by both sides, though the size of the pedestals are different, is despite the fact that both have seriously failed. Not only does America pay more money for health care per capita,  a recent study conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School reported that approximately 45,000 Americans died in the last year because of either a lack of insurance or care. Simple arithmetic will tell us that 45,000 is over 15 times the number of people who were brutally murdered on September 11. But will these 45,000 people  matter to us when a system that many of us depend on, rather than foreigners, is what killed them? Do those who are adequately covered think that being upset at the number who died here be interpreted as biting that hand that feeds us?

A few observations can be made regarding what has become a public compulsion to kick the ball through the uprights on the important issues of the day. First, there is the same beneficiary to what has been deemed as an acceptable set of views. That beneficiary is business. That our wars benefit the corporate world has been documented as far back as the early 20th century by people like Helen Keller and former Marine Corps Major General  Smedley Butler. Keller noted how war benefits business when, in 1916, she spoke out against the US entering WWI. She noted that the motive for all of our previous wars was to benefit business. Smedley Butler said the same regarding the action he saw while in the Marines. Historian William Blum has noted that since WWII, we have participated in the attempted regime change at least 50 times. Some of these regime changes involved replacing democracies with dictatorships. In many cases, the motive for our actions was to protect vital American interests (a.k.a., business interests).

With regards to health care, it is not difficult to see that regardless of which view wins out in the health care debate, business wins again. Even with health insurance companies' worst case scenario known as Obama's Health Care reforms, a significant number of new customers are being generated for health insurance companies.

Second, we should also note that there is an ever increasing conflict of interest for those who shape our views of the world. The media faces this conflict because there is an ever decreasing number of corporations that owns them and this limited ownership puts the control of media into the hands of a few whose future depends on how they are perceived. In addition, corporations are often our political leaders' leading campaign contributors. Thus our political leaders face a conflict of interest just in trying to meet the demands of their job. On the one hand, they are charged with representing the people. But on the other hand, these leaders must receive corporate donations to run for reelection. The result of business's funding our politicians is that these politicians return the favor by passing legislation that requires the purchase of goods and services provided by their benefactors.

Third, if we put the first two observations together, we see that business-state coops have formed. The purpose of these coops is to ensure each other's existence. Business ensures the election of desirable candidates both through contributions and through control of what the American public perceives as acceptable. In return, these candidates, once elected ensure the suvivability and even success of their favorite business by directing more customers their way through domestic and foreign policies. In the meantime, the American public has been relegated from being the primary interest of our government to that of a hurdle that must be cleared to continue the race.

Fourth, while we the people could show righteous indignation at that the business-state coop that works to our detriment, we need to reserve some loathing for ourselves as well. We enable this partnership by settling for a lazy bipolar democracy. We can call our democracy lazy because our only participation in the democratic process occurs every x number of years as we knowingly elect officials who strongly support and participate in the previously mentioned business-state coop. We can call our democracy bipolar because, in most cases, we have allowed ourselves to be placed in a game of pong between our two major political parties. All to often, the differences between our two political parties consist of deciding which set of corporate interests will benefit from the election and/or which party will receive the honor of serving the corporate world.

Our last election, as most past elections have, offered to bring change to America. But, for the most part, what we have seen thus far is business as usual. And perhaps, we should ask ourselves how in the world can we really expect change from our political system when we
refuse to change ourselves by falling into the same trap of voting for one of two parties. For as long as we the people settle for the same old same old kind of lazy bipolar democracy, how can we possibly expect change? Though we have some time to wait until the next election to vote someone new in, we can change the lazy component of our democracy right now. The question becomes, do we want change? If so, perhaps the change has to start with us.


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Do War Memorials And Movies Destroy Us

The link below is to an article written by Chris Hedges about how our glorification of war leads us to our destruction in our next war.

Celebrating Slaughter: War And Collective Amnesia

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Righteously Selfish

Below is a link to an article that briefly explores the role of America's Free Market and the mentality it pushes on Christians.

Righteously Selfish

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Forgetting The Ties That Bind

Below is a link to an article that challenges the current conservative Christian trend where such Christians turn away from both the problems of the world and non-Christian sources of information. This makes the Christian community a fortress island that sabotages the Christian duty to follow the Great Commission. It also lacks compassion and modesty.

Forgetting The Ties That Bind

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Is The Economic Recovery Going The Way Of Foreign Policy?

It has been pointed out before that foreign policy is designed to benefit a few good friends, not the nation as a whole. As these policies unfold, these good friends react as both the few and the proud--as well as the rich. This was a point made by Helen Keller who, in 1916, advised the US to not only avoid the trappings of entering WWI, but unload its colonies in the Pacific before they could become the cause for a war between the America and Japan (see Helen Keller's speech). A similar point was made by former Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler with regards to the few benefiting from war while the many paid the price (War Is A Racket and Interventionism). This point was just repeated by Noam Chomsky as he recently addressed the UN (UN speech).

But what about our economic recovery? Are we seeing the same trend as we have been seeing in foreign policy after foreign policy? Are only a few benefiting from Obama's economic stimulus and recovery plan? It sure seems that way. The banks and Wall Street gang bangers who were just recently crying the blues in order to receive tax supported pity, are now in the black--or have become the black hole for what is left of America's dollars. In the meantime, America's second surge, our unemployment figures, is boldly going where Obama dared it not to go. We are now beginning to hear the phrase "jobless recovery" to describe today's economy. And while the today's robber barons are hoarding six and seven figure bonuses, the number of those who are losing their jobs continues to number in the hundreds of thousands and thousands of others losing health insurance. For the robber barons' sake, one would hope that they do not shout out the phrase "Let Them Eat Cake" to the growing ranks of the have nots.

This outcome is not a surprise to many on the Left. Paul Street (see Paul Street's book on Obama) documented Obama's leading campaign donors many of whom are now enjoying America's preselectively limited economic recovery. This is in contrast to the real socialists of America who called for a worker oriented recovery rather than a state run investor oriented recovery. And as this recovery continues, we see a reoccurring theme from our foreign policy in that "principle architects", as Adam Smith called them, have their needs and wants attended to (see Chapter 4 of Wealth Of The Nations) while the rest of us can only hope that there will be enough scraps falling from the table to keep us going another day.

This is partially our fault. We are enablers for the robber barons by being content with a lazy bipolar democracy. Our democracy is a lazy one in that our only involvement in our government consists of voting every x number of years. Our democracy is bipolar in that we refuse to consider voting for any other party than the two corporately owned political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.
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When is it right for countries to intervene?

When is it moral for countries to intervene in the affairs of other countries? How do we know when intervention is not just a power play? The following link to a UN speech brings up issues to consider when thinking about these questions. This is a must read for those wanting a more moral and just world.

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22227




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ObamaCare And Lessons From The Iraq War

As a teacher, I am use to seeing students not learning from their mistakes. It is usually because their attention is on something else and thus they put minimal effort in to the class. So I am not surprised to see the public's reaction to Obama and the downturn in the polls that his health care plan is experiencing. After all, with the scare tactics being used to describe both Obama and his plan, it is surprising that no one has mentioned the word impeachment. And, since we, as a nation, have just finished seeing how scare tactics can inspire wrong decisions (a.k.a. The Iraq War), bowing to today's fear mongering indicates what we learn history is that we don't learn from history, as has been said before. So what were our past mistakes and how are we repeating them today?

Remember the build up for the Iraq War and how it suddenly changed once the invasion began. The build up was almost entirely about the terrors we would face if we didn't invade Iraq now. We were told both that Saddamn had an arsenal of chemical and biological WMDs and would soon possess a nuclear weapon that would be used to create a mushroom cloud over an American city. We were told that our President would only resort to war as a last result but he then insisted on confronting the "gather storm" now. The failure of UN inspection team to find any WMDs did not shake our certainty. And that our government refused their request for time to complete their work should have raised some red flags but it didn't. That the name of the operation and its focus of becoming the liberation of the Iraqi people right when the invasion began should have told us that we were duped by fear. The Iraq war was not about our security; it was about something else. Fear was being used by the government to sell their war of choice.

What do we have today? We have a plethora of false accusations, exaggerations, and a few legitimate concerns being used to strike fear into the American public. The false accusations include racism, the comparisons of Obama with Hitler or Stalin, and the accusations that Obama is a Marxist. Such accusations both are unconscionable and show the willingness of some to trivialize both the evil that Hitler and Stalin practiced and the suffering that their victims endured for a political advantage. Those who have studied Marxism see the charge that Obama is a Marxist as a sign of extreme ignorance or manipulation. Another false accusation  is that Obama's Health Care plan will give the government power and control over all of our medical decisions. Exaggerated claims include the prospect of rationed health care and that government employees will be asking each of us how we want to die. With regards to the former, one has to realize that every health care plan uses some kind of rationed health care. Currently, some policies are canceled when claims are made and those who have no insurance get rationed or sometimes no care. Even those with adequate health insurance plans will get some kind of rationed service from time to time. With regards to the latter, that occurs only within certain setting and it does not even apply to all who are old.

So in other words, the people who brought us war by fear are now trying to deny us health care by using the same and the American people are beginning to respond as they have before. It is as if America is saying "make us afraid and we will do anything." And using fear was exactly Herman Goering's weapon of choice when motivating young Germans to join the military and fight WWII.

Our problem is that our real attention is diverted so that we have neither the time nor interest to think through the fear mongering. I am not saying this because I am a fan of Obama and his health care plan, I am not. I favor universal care with a single payer system. Nor am I saying that there are no legitimate concerns. Certainly the high cost of universal care is a very legitimate concern--especially when Obama is not willing to cut the military budget. But paying a high price is a fixed cost when taking care of people. Either we neglect those in need and pay a high price for declining morals, overburdened or closed emergency rooms, and the increase incarceration that comes with a higher crime rate--why should people respect a system that does not respect them by telling them to sink (die) or swim. Please note that the decreased morals applies to those who have health care as well as those who do not. After all, if we do not give universal coverage because we choose not to share with those in need, there is no reason why those who are financially above us will care about us if they feel constrained by our presence.

At some point, we have to decide whether to follow history with its same old same old, and lose everything or adjust to survive. Here, we have to decide whether to give in to fear or be willing to start making necessary changes. Though Obama's plan does not go in the best direction, after all, most of his plan is designed to funnel business to the health insurance companies; at least it is a step away from a completely wrong and heartless direction. Or we can decide not to share and thus create more enemies of the system that provides for us by not providing for the growing number of people who are losing their jobs and their health insurance. We might even think of providing universal health care as being patriotic because through it we help our fellow Americans. Those who live by instilling fear will not think so; but then again, they probably limit patriotism to merely waving a flag or shooting a gun.


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Palin's Apology Shows Where America Shops

Sarah Palin apologized for her resigning as governor. No, she did not say she was sorry; rather, she gave a defense for resigning and that is what an apology could be.

Perhaps conscious of the future, Palin did not want the resignation to be viewed negatively and so she spun enough to make a whole wardrobe. July 3rd spins included: "only dead fish go with the flow", "I choose to work very hard on a path for fruitfulness and productivity", "I choose NOT to tear down and waste precious time; but to build UP this state and our country", "I am not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual", "A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball", and quoting General MacArthur "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."

The plethora of ethics complaints that has been hounding Palin seems to be the cause of the resignation. These complaints include the possible misuse of power in the firing of the Public Safety Commissioner(she was found guilty for violating the state's ethics law and then found innocent while the actual firing of the commissioner was deemed legal), breaking an election law for taking a public stand on a mining ballot initiative too early, wrongfully accessing and disclosing personal information of a state trooper, charging the state for the travel expenses of her family(she later reimbursed the state), failing to full disclose gifts received, and there were charges made against her staff.

Most of the charges have been dismissed and some of the charges amount to nothing more than harassment. But, the state's legal expenses did not change as a result of the constant charges made against her. That is because the legal charges were a fixed cost that the state would pay their lawyers anyway.

Thus the point remains, Sarah Palin quit her job as the Governor of Alaska. She claimed that she didn't want to be a lame duck governor but becoming a lame duck governor was her decision after she decided not to run for a second term. She claims that she is not practicing "politics as usual," which is true, but that claim does not imply anything good. And though it is true that dead fish go with the flow, they are not the only ones. Live fish and canoes can also go with the flow while salmon swim against the flow only to die at the end.

Though when reading or listening to Palin, it is evident that she has an above normal fixation with herself, that is not the concern here. The concern is her spinning and use of euphemisms to describe her resignation. She simply quit her job and she did so because of the pressure. And this should be remembered if she asks us to vote for her in a future presidential election.

But enough about Palin because the real concern here is not her but America's generous use of euphemisms to describe its actions. For just like when Palin professes to resign for the sake of the state of Alaska, our country claimed to be interested in Iraq's freedom and our self-defense when it illegally invaded Iraq. Fortunately, it was activism that rescued Iraq from the invasion and the course that its planners had envisioned. And how did America explain the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children from the sanctions that the US forced through the UN and then enforced? Secretary of State Albright said that the "price was worth it." And how did our government describe the terror war they waged against Nicaraqua?  Didn't Reagan call the Contras "freedom fighters" despite the fact that they acted as terrorists by attacking soft targets and the fact that the Sandinistas, their opponents, gave Nicaraguans many more freedoms than did the American supported governments of Guatemala and El Salvador? And didn't we claim that our troops were fighting in Vietnam for our freedom. That claim was only partially true because though the personal reason for many of the troops was to fight for the freedom of their fellow Americans, the fact that we lost no freedoms after losing the war showed that that was not why they were sent.

We could also mention how, for so long, much of this country whitewashed slavery before the Civil War and the horrific persecution of Blacks that followed or how we killed hundreds of thousands of Filappinos after the Spanish American War because they did not know how to run their own country. And just suggest to the Conservative that the Constitution started as a racist document and you will get an earful why not counting Blacks as equals was a noble compromise with the Southern states. And let's not forget how America often described the ethnic cleansing of the land from the Indians.

When it comes to describing its own sins, America shops at Euphemisms R Us for the best spin material. And the euphemisms we employ serve a purpose. That purpose is to allow us to continue to believe in the heroes of our Established Institutions even after their behaviors are thoroughly discrediting. And for as long as we keep those heroes, we will bow to their authority and insist that all others bow with us.

So now we come back to Sarah Palin, a bonafide heroine to some. In fact, I have heard some call her the "Esther" (from the Bible) of America. What does her spin do? It relieves her listeners of the cognitive dissonance they feel when they stare at her self-portrait full of virtues while watching her quit her job. The theory of Cognitive Dissonance tells us that when faced with conflicting ideas, most people will choose to believe what takes the least energy. And what takes the least energy is to find a way to continue in one's current beliefs. That is why Sarah shops at Euphemisms R Us before explaining why she quit her job. It is so her followers can continue to believe and support her. But then we must ask them that if she couldn't take the pressure of the constant but small time harassment that comes with being the governor of Alaska, how could we expect her to take the pressure of being President in 2012 or later if she decides to run? Perhaps the most prudent course she could take is that of an author and speaker. At least she is starting that career with a following.

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