the state of the world

I have myopically concentrated on my writing for the last few years, ignoring too much of what was happening on the net... my own happiness at finding an audience for my work was pleasant enough to inspire me to up my out put quite a bit, and hone my skills for the world of the internet writer.  A breed I lucked into working with by virtue of running traditional poetry readings, and being introduced to blogging as a way to showcase my short stories while searching for an agent for One War.

I could never have predicted what started out as a way of getting my work cataloged and edited would end up as how I would reach millions.  The blog developed into many things from there on out, always kind of anchored in trying to be funny, in an acerbic, atheistic way that was insulting, quite frankly, to thinking religious people.   I went too far as a lot to toward blaming religion for a lot of the world's problems that have nothing more to do with religion, than the chimps who also wage war for Territory's;    you would have to pretty naive to think Chimp's have anything similar to religion, just the hierarchy that led our later institutionalization of religion as a means of social control, and revolution.   Religion is really whatever you or someone else makes it for you.... a trick of geography and how many times your parents beat and caressed you;  I hardly think a just God would blame those who were broken down by this life, whether by disease or their own folly, and end up becoming truly criminal sinners.  The jails are filled with the mentally ill.  Did God say anywhere punish the mentally ill?  No.

In fact, back then, the visions of the schizophrenics, if high functioning enough, were considered portals into unseen world, as were dreams.  We cannot imagine what it is like to truly think in the various human geographies that exist on our own planet now, let alone back then  We can study primitive societies and get glimpses of how we were once, before the slow progress of knowledge caused entropy to slowly  dissolve most of what was once believed true.

I have always found myself among the great critics of any and all politicians,.  A comic foil if nothing else in my writing.  The enemy, almost, since they seemed to be taking orders from people like the Moral Majority, that wanted this country  going the exact opposite direction I remember thinking we should go as a kid, and never much wavering since....  essentially.  Liberalizing, becoming more just, progressing, etc...  Just seems logical, when you look around at how much better our lives have gotten in so many ways because of sewer systems, modern medicine, cultural evolution, etc...   Computers, etc...  give me great hope in humankind...  I mean, disaster after disaster we weather, and  scar tissue is actually stronger in the end, even if it does burn with angry  red pain.

Along with my innate wish to be hopeful in some respects, while still cleared eyed as much as possible while evaluating the news,  I want to write about how Obama, despite all the stuff that is going on where he is not doing exactly what I would (thank God, because I do hope he has access to a bit more intelligence and expertise in the world than I do -- you would never know there are others just like me on the web, by how sure they think they know why a president acts as he does).    He has expanded the war to 75 countries.  Total War For Total Peace.  Me getting what I saw coming, or what I wanted, and what I hoped to avoid.

I hoped for peace talks when Obama entered the war.  OBAMA FORGIVE OSSAMA, LET ALL THE WARRIORS GO HOME...  was the huge sign I put in my windows on Lakeshore Drive, months before he declared.  I think if you make the decisions to go war, you should also make the decision to go to peace talks.  Behind the scenes, there should always be those with their eye on the prize, the end game.  Peace.  Soldiers in the field cover the peace talks with hushed silence, hoping and praying that progress is being made to stop the killing.  Eventually, a cease fire can be hammered out.  Of course, Militarily speaking, you want to have a lot of power before you go to that table.  You want to be the clear winner, but that is the thing.... we are beyond winners and losers.

We need to concentrate on stopping terrorists attacks.  If that requires pulling out the troops because our activities are generating a huge enemy army across the middle east who will sooner or later become effective instead to strike our shores again (and gave nus just  last month some of the highest soldier's deaths of the war), then we balance this with our safety concerns for our allies in the region and get out.  If we have to take thousands of Iraqi's with us to guarantee their security, so be it.

In Afghanistan, I hear the president is going ahead with talks with the Taliban and Warlords.  He just wants peace, and as they compromised with the Taliban before, they will again.  This does not have to mean we lost this war.... though Bushes neglect of this region for Iraq will certainly go down in history as a bloody mistake made by civilians lying the military into a war run by a cowboy who understood so little about actual war, that he declared victory after the first year of what is now the longest conflict in our nations history.

The G-20 summit filled me with fear. Obama did not agree with the totality of the austerity measures being asked for, but cutting the most vulnerable s safety net out t from under them at a time when there are no jobs even for the highly qualified?  He went with that.  Who knows what will come of this?  Budget deficits are not all bad, if they are under control.  Certainly, better than starving folk in the streets....  

When society has to go against the most vulnerable...  we are headed in the wrong direction.  I do not think this is Obama's vision of the world.  I believe the situation he finds himself in critical, with the entire world on the brink of a depression that he has to do anything in his power to avoid....  I do not envy what is on his plate, as he grays rapidly before our eyes.  He'll have stark white hair by the end of his presidency....  or at least I hope it takes that long.

I have actually decided I have been spending too much time trying to follow various news stories, and the news in general.   I need a break to just think about my own writing, paint, come up with jokes and formats for the radio, edit all the new poetry I have been putting up, get to the movie script.   And just shoot some silly little movies.  I want to remember how to have fun.  I really do.

So please president Obama, hurry up with this war, so we can spend that money back here, where we need it.