What is it (should it be) to be an American?

Thanks to The History Place web site for this.

I've heard some people asking this week, just who are we as Americans now? Who do we think we are? Right wing extremism, extreme fundemental, evangelical Christianity and Republicans confused in the implosion of their party as well as our having now to deal with a different kind of enemy in religious if not Islamic terrorism and the rise of groups as an enemy over that of nation states, has diluted what it is to be an American. 

In this speech just replace Britain for France. Or simply wait, as I'm sure there will be attacks forthcoming again on the UK, sadly. Transpose the elements of WWII for today's struggles and today's events and players. But the core should sound familiar. And if it doesn't, you need to question your orientation today.

From Harold Ickes - May 18, 1941

This remarkable speech was delivered during an I am an American Day gathering in New York's Central Park by Harold Ickes, President Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. It came at a perilous moment in history, May of 1941, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seemed headed toward possible world domination.

By this time, countries that had fallen to the Nazis included Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and areas in North Africa. Airfields and cities in England were now under ferocious air attack from the German Luftwaffe while wolf-packs of Nazi U-boats attempted to blockade the British Isles.

Many Americans, however, still questioned the wisdom and necessity of direct U.S. involvement in the European war. Pacifist sentiment was steadily growing, while at the same time Fascism was sometimes referred to as the "wave of the future" by respected Americans, buoyed in part by the ceaseless barrage of highly effective anti-democratic propaganda emanating from the Fascist countries of Europe including Germany.

In this speech, Harold Ickes counters that propaganda, defines what it means to be a free American, and offers a blunt assessment of the perilous future the United States would face standing alone against a victorious Hitler.

Here it is:

I want to ask a few simple questions. And then I shall answer them.

What has happened to our vaunted idealism? Why have some of us been behaving like scared chickens? Where is the million-throated, democratic voice of America?

For years it has been dinned into us that we are a weak nation; that we are an inefficient people; that we are simple-minded. For years we have been told that we are beaten, decayed, and that no part of the world belongs to us any longer.

Some amongst us have fallen for this carefully pickled tripe. Some amongst us have fallen for this calculated poison. Some amongst us have begun to preach that the "wave of the future" has passed over us and left us a wet, dead fish.

They shout--from public platforms in printed pages, through the microphones--that it is futile to oppose the "wave of the future." They cry that we Americans, we free Americans nourished on Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, hold moth-eaten ideas. They exclaim that there is no room for free men in the world any more and that only the slaves will inherit the earth. America--the America of Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln and Walt Whitman--they say, is waiting for the undertaker and all the hopes and aspirations that have gone into the making of America are dead too.

However, my fellow citizens, this is not the real point of the story. The real point--the shameful point--is that many of us are listening to them and some of us almost believe them.

I say that it is time for the great American people to raise its voice and cry out in mighty triumph what it is to be an American. And why it is that only Americans, with the aid of our brave allies--yes, let's call them "allies"--the British, can and will build the only future worth having. I mean a future, not of concentration camps, not of physical torture and mental straitjackets, not of sawdust bread or of sawdust Caesars--I mean a future when free men will live free lives in dignity and in security.

This tide of the future, the democratic future, is ours. It is ours if we show ourselves worthy of our culture and of our heritage.

But make no mistake about it; the tide of the democratic future is not like the ocean tide--regular, relentless, and inevitable. Nothing in human affairs is mechanical or inevitable. Nor are Americans mechanical. They are very human indeed.

What constitutes an American? Not color nor race nor religion. Not the pedigree of his family nor the place of his birth. Not the coincidence of his citizenship. Not his social status nor his bank account. Not his trade nor his profession. An American is one who loves justice and believes in the dignity of man. An American is one who will fight for his freedom and that of his neighbor. An American is one who will sacrifice property, ease and security in order that he and his children may retain the rights of free men. An American is one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.

Americans have always known how to fight for their rights and their way of life. Americans are not afraid to fight. They fight joyously in a just cause.

We Americans know that freedom, like peace, is indivisible. We cannot retain our liberty if three-fourths of the world is enslaved. Brutality, injustice and slavery, if practiced as dictators would have them, universally and systematically, in the long run would destroy us as surely as a fire raging in our nearby neighbor's house would burn ours if we didn't help to put out his.

If we are to retain our own freedom, we must do everything within our power to aid Britain. 

We must also do everything to restore to the conquered peoples their freedom. This means the Germans too.

Such a program, if you stop to think, is selfishness on our part. It is the sort of enlightened selfishness that makes the wheels of history go around. It is the sort of enlightened selfishness that wins victories.

Do you know why? Because we cannot live in the world alone, without friends and without allies. If Britain should be defeated, then the totalitarian undertaker will prepare to hang crepe on the door of our own independence.

Perhaps you wonder how this could come about? Perhaps you have heard "them"--the wavers of the future--cry, with calculated malice, that even if Britain were defeated we could live alone and defend ourselves single handed, even against the whole world.

I tell you that this is a cold blooded lie.

We would be alone in the world, facing an unscrupulous military-economic bloc that would dominate all of Europe, all of Africa, most of Asia, and perhaps even Russia and South America. Even to do that, we would have to spend most of our national income on tanks and guns and planes and ships. Nor would this be all. We would have to live perpetually as an armed camp, maintaining a huge standing army, a gigantic air force, two vast navies. And we could not do this without endangering our freedom, our democracy, our way of life.

Perhaps such is the America "they"--the wavers of the future--foresee. Perhaps such is the America that a certain aviator, with his contempt for democracy, would prefer. Perhaps such is the America that a certain Senator desires. Perhaps such is the America that a certain mail order executive longs for.

But a perpetually militarized, isolated and impoverished America is not the America that our fathers came here to build.

It is not the America that has been the dream and the hope of countless generations in all parts of the world.

It is not the America that one hundred and thirty million of us would care to live in.

The continued security of our country demands that we aid the enslaved millions of Europe--yes, even of Germany--to win back their liberty and independence. I am convinced that if we do not embark upon such a program we will lose our own freedom.

We should be clear on this point. What is convulsing the world today is not merely another old-fashioned war. It is a counter revolution against our ideas and ideals, against our sense of justice and our human values.

Three systems today compete for world domination. Communism, fascism, and democracy are struggling for social-economic-political world control. As the conflict sharpens, it becomes clear that the other two, fascism and communism, are merging into one. They have one common enemy, democracy. They have one common goal, the destruction of democracy.

This is why this war is not an ordinary war. It is not a conflict for markets or territories. It is a desperate struggle for the possession of the souls of men.

This is why the British are not fighting for themselves alone. They are fighting to preserve freedom for mankind. For the moment, the battleground is the British Isles. But they are fighting our war; they are the first soldiers in trenches that are also our front-line trenches.

In this world war of ideas and of loyalties we believers in democracy must do two things. We must unite our forces to form one great democratic international. We must offer a clear program to freedom-loving peoples throughout the world.

Freedom-loving men and women in every land must organize and tighten their ranks. The masses everywhere must be helped to fight their oppressors and conquerors.

We, free, democratic Americans are in a position to help. We know that the spirit of freedom never dies. We know that men have fought and bled for freedom since time immemorial. We realize that the liberty-loving German people are only temporarily enslaved. We do not doubt that the Italian people are looking forward to the appearance of another Garibaldi. We know how the Poles have for centuries maintained a heroic resistance against tyranny. We remember the brave struggle of the Hungarians under Kossuth and other leaders. We recall the heroic figure of Masaryk and the gallant fight for freedom of the Czech people. The story of the Yugoslavs', especially the Serbs' blows for liberty and independence is a saga of extraordinary heroism. The Greeks will stand again at Thermopylae, as they have in the past. The annals of our American sister-republics, too, are glorious with freedom-inspiring exploits. The noble figure of Simon Bolivar, the great South American liberator, has naturally been compared with that of George Washington.

No, liberty never dies. The Genghis Khans come and go. The Attilas come and go. The Hitlers flash and sputter out. But freedom endures.

Destroy a whole generation of those who have known how to walk with heads erect in God's free air, and the next generation will rise against the oppressors and restore freedom. Today in Europe, the Nazi Attila may gloat that he has destroyed democracy. He is wrong. In small farmhouses all over Central Europe, in the shops of Germany and Italy, on the docks of Holland and Belgium, freedom still lives in the hearts of men. It will endure like a hardy tree gone into the wintertime, awaiting the spring.

And, like spring, spreading from the South into Scandinavia, the democratic revolution will come. And men with democratic hearts will experience comradeship across artificial boundaries.

These men and women, hundreds of millions of them, now in bondage or threatened with slavery, are our comrades and our allies. They are only waiting for our leadership and our encouragement, for the spark that we can supply.

These hundreds of millions, of liberty-loving people, now oppressed, constitute the greatest sixth column in history. They have the will to destroy the Nazi gangsters.

We have always helped in struggles for human freedom. And we will help again. But our hundreds of millions of liberty-loving allies would despair if we did not provide aid and encouragement. The quicker we help them the sooner this dreadful revolution will be over. We cannot, we must not, we dare not delay much longer.

The fight for Britain is in its crucial stages. We must give the British everything we have. And by everything, I mean everything needed to beat the life out of our common enemy.

The second step must be to aid and encourage our friends and allies everywhere. And by everywhere I mean Europe and Asia and Africa and America.

And finally, the most important of all, we Americans must gird spiritually for the battle. We must dispel the fog of uncertainty and vacillation. We must greet with raucous laughter the corroding arguments of our appeasers and fascists. They doubt democracy. We affirm it triumphantly so that all the world may hear:

Here in America we have something so worth living for that it is worth dying for! The so-called "wave of the future" is but the slimy backwash of the past. We have not heaved from our necks the tyrant's crushing heel, only to stretch our necks out again for its weight. Not only will we fight for democracy, we will make it more worth fighting for. Under our free institutions, we will work for the good of mankind, including Hitler's victims in Germany, so that all may have plenty and security.

We American democrats know that when good will prevails among men there will be a world of plenty and a world of security.

In the words of Winston Churchill, "Are we downhearted," No, we arc not! But someone is downhearted! Witness the terrified flight of Hess, Hitler's Number Three Man. And listen to this--listen carefully:

"The British nation can be counted upon to carry through to victory any struggle that it once enters upon no matter how long such a struggle may last or however great the sacrifices that may be necessary or whatever the means that have to be employed; and all this even though the actual military equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when compared with that of other nations."

Do you know who wrote that? Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. And do you know who took down that dictation? Rudolf Hess.

We will help to make Hitler's prophecy come true. We will help brave England drive back the hordes from Hell who besiege her and then we will join for the destruction of savage and blood-thirsty dictators everywhere. But we must be firm and decisive. We must know our will and make it felt. And we must hurry.

Harold Ickes - May 18, 1941

Death to the Great Satan of Islamic Terrorism!

Help Paris

I took this shot at Blarney Castle which is perfect related to terrorists.
The delusional can't see the forest for the trees essentially leading to stupidity.

Death to Abdelhamid Abaaoud coordinator to the Paris attack and multiple failed attacks this year, as well as Charlie Hebdo. Human filth, still walking the earth, but not for much longer.

I would like to apologize ahead of time to good Muslims faithful to their Islamic beliefs and roots.

Those of you who disagree with my posting semblances of your prophet but who would never consider killing me over it, I mean no offense.

Not in My Name campaign

I'm also glad to see Muslim leaders are speaking out against groups like ISIS\ISIL and other losers of such ill quality and low substance.

I'm posting these things because of those Muslims who will kill over things like a damn cartoon, thinking that all people should follow Islam. 

IF that is your belief however, then we do have a problem and perhaps we do need a religious war where religion will finally be wiped out. Just know that I have no need to end Islam. Religions in general perhaps, but only through speaking openly about my beliefs in non violent, non lethal ways.

Even though I know the truth, it gives me no right to kill believers. And vice versa, terrorists. 

I'm perfectly happy to leave theists alone to live and pursue happiness, to build calluses on their foreheads, to wear out tiny rugs and knee cartilage. Unless it impedes my pursuit of happiness through their pursuit of happiness. 

We are a disparate world that needs to learn to live together, not to kill each other.

Western countries admittedly have a culpability in all this mess as has been shown. But that does not excuse these killings. Even if they are not religiously motivated, they are being done by Muslims nonetheless. The world is a rough place that doesn't need innocent people being slaughtered just because your people are having a rough time of it. Heartless? Perhaps. But there are other ways and attacking people you only perceive to have done you harm is not one of them. 

Understand that I do not have to respect your beliefs, your religion, your God or your Allah. 

No one does!

One has only to respect that you have the right to believe in your delusions, just as we all do. 

No one has a right to force their beliefs on another, that's a kind of rape. If you belong to a religion that teachers otherwise, you are the one in league with Satan, the Devil, with Evil incarnate. Nearly all serial murders are found to have a strict religious upbringing. Then you have also obviously acquired quite a few sociopaths. 

Sex, alcohol, drugs, co-mingling of the sexes, may all seem bad to you but I question if you simply don't get enough of it and so you are basically just pissed off all your life. I would be. It's been shown that too restrictive religions lead to personality problems. What those things require in life is building borders and mechanisms to handle life as an adult, not hiding behind religion, fearing the world.

In killing innocents Islamic terrorists are basically claiming that Muhammad is evil, a joke. 

Why would they do that? Why DO they do that? Because, that is what terrorism is. Fundamentally, an alternate and real definition of violent Islam.

Je suis Charlie! 

Je suis Paris!

Je suis Beirut!

Je suis... all victims of terror!

And all the other places terrorists have attacked

where innocents have died and been maimed.

I suspect Paris and all of France are feeling the same thing toward terrorists about this current attack.

Terrorists attacking the innocent
are mentally and socially damaged people
attacking the entire modern human race.
Backward people pushing a backward and warped agenda.

Want more?

See my blog from this weekend after the Paris attack.

Islamic Terrorism a World Wide Social Cancer - Paris

http://www.crumbproducts.com/

If this stuff makes you want to kill someone over your God, Allah, or more likely your interpretation of you ancient religion you refuse to allow to evolve in order to join the rest of the wold, you are the problem.

Grow up! Try evolving into a mature adults and understand things as they are, not as you wish them to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba

Don't get me wrong. Christianity and Judaism is just as silly a religion.

Go off in a corner and reflect on your mistake. Stop listening to your religious leader because obviously if you are thinking that way he, and you, are idiots plain and simple.

If you want a "Caliphate" that never existed so you can live as if you won the lotto to do whatever you want, then you have the problem. 

You are the one needing to be destroyed. 

And you will be in the end. Evil is cyclical and your cycle is running out.

http://www.charliehebdo.fr/index.html

I don't care about you if you adhere to beliefs of a terrorist.

I don't care that you're offended.

I don't care that you feel there is a make believe war against you or your holidays or your religion.

I don't care what you think if you are talking about nonsense your favorite nutcases have dreamed up.

I don't care that you think your God or religion says you can hurt people or kill them.

I care about real people, really being hurt.

I care about real pain and real suffering, not perceived pain and not perceived suffering.

I care about the poor who have no money or food or healthcare.

I don't care about the rich who are sad they will have less money for others to have something at all, when it will not affect the rich at all in any real substantive way.

I care about reality.

I care about people. Not your luxuries in life when others don't have because you do. Or when others are dying because of your God, or your buddies who like to kill and enjoy the benefits of power over others who are not of your clan, cult, tribe or nonsense belief system.

So I guess I do care. I just don't much care about you.

Islamic Terrorism a World Wide Social Cancer - Paris

Help Paris

I'm very pleased to hear Muslims speaking out against terrorism after the attack in Paris on November 13, 2015, Friday the 13th.

I am myself half Czechoslovakian, half Irish. I feel a close tie to Europe and just spent a couple of weeks in Ireland in September for my birthday. I feel these attacks close to my heart.

Je suis Charlie! Je suis Paris! And Beirut! And all the other places terrorists have attacked where innocents have died and been maimed.

I do not have to respect your beliefs, your religion, your God or your Allah. No one does. One has only to respect that you have the right to believe in your delusions, just as we all do. No one has a right to force their beliefs on another and if you belong to a religion that teachers otherwise, you are the one in league with Satan, the Devil, with Evil. Islamic terrorists in killing innocents are therefore saying that Muhammad is evil, a joke. 

Why should they want to do that?

A word about those who shoot down people changing their Facebook photo to exhibit the French flag, or some other small token of French support. Stop shooting them down to make yourself feel superior! Anything helps! Something is more than nothing. Talking about how we can do more is best, but chastising people for meaning well, does nobody any good.

Terrorists are by definition unimportant people who have found a way to make themselves feel important, while they never really are and never really can or will be. Truly being an important person takes thought and working with a system, not trying to kill it through murder and mayhem.

Terrorism is the greatest social cancer we have. The attack in Paris Friday night was horrendous, cowardly, the result of tiny minds who don't deserve to breathe the same air as those they attacked.

Let's start with wishing the human trash, "Jihadi John" Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British militant, a not so fond farewell.

Feel free to burn in your own personal Hell, pal.

They deserve no quarter and they love their misplaced martyrdom.

I have had enough of religion and especially religious extremism. Even more so that of those who use religious concepts for purposes of greed or pleasure. Attacking innocent people gives terrorists pleasure. They go against their own religion, their own beliefs and they don't even understand that. Or how religion or evolution works. They especially, as most theists, do not understand social evolution or religious evolution.

I spent my entire life studying religion having started out Catholic and ending up an atheist who uses Buddhism as a guide in life, as well as Aikido. Wrap you head around that one. I wrote a Horror \ Sci Fi book titled, Death of heaven which tells the story of a world and a human race sorely mistaken on religion and our history where the belief and history of religion comes crashing down with all due pain and intensity. Video Trailer.

That gives you a little background on me and where I'm coming from. Religion to me now seems truly silly and killing over it, even more so. You don't kill innocents. I'm against that be you serial murderer, terrorist or America.

I don't think for instance, any drone strike should ever happen without 100% being sure no innocents die. All terrorists do is temporarily scare a few people, and then piss off a lot. It makes people angry to be unfairly attacked. You're not supporting your cause. If you think your prophet is telling you to do that, you're wrong, he's wrong, your religion is wrong.

Terrorism is used in order to get something when your army is too small to get what your people want. But what your people want is untenable to the rest of the world and so in the end, you will lose. Just kill yourself now and save us all a lot of time and trouble. And more death. Or get your act together and play nice and be in the world rather than against it. Only a religion would teach that.

It will be a great shock I'm sure when Islamic terrorists martyr themselves and then arrive in heaven only to realize it was all a sham. Not really though. After all, how can they be surprised to find that when they die, nothingness?

Religion exists, what they teach in general does not. Which makes Islamic terrorism even stupider.

This isn't about all Muslims or Islam itself. Though it has something to do with it.

You can have the bible according to Mickey Mouse with nothing violent in it, and you'd still have violent people using it as a justification for their sickly desired actions. 

These religions I'll grant you, these Desert Religions born of hard times, hard people in an area allowing anonymity in migrating about for thousands of years, in having created religions that are death oriented to begin with, are much like mind worms with questionable teachings that just won't die.

People pick and choose in their religion and these nut cases choose to force it into violent forms. 

Yes, religion needs to go away and it will as we mature as a race of beings. It was apparently necessary for a very long time, though. We need to stop kowtowing to the concept of religion and make it fit our modern mold of non violence and scientific based thinking. 

Religion is here for now and people are infected with it. They choose how to make it be productive, in a useful social adhering way, or a way useful only to specific individuals in a violent and disgusting way to support their desires to be more than they are.

Religion isn't the root problem here, really. It just seems that way as a justification for questionable acts. If the Quran didn't exist, they'd use a missile manual they found in the wild that some Russian dropped or they'd find a way for Buddhism to be violent. Or something else. These are people who want to do what they want to do, regardless of what their religion says. 

However this is also very much a socio-economic disease perpetrated by first world countries abusing this region for many decades because of their ignorance and backward ways that we have utilized for our benefit and finally it's come back to bite us all. 

It really was only a matter of time.

Let's not let us off the hook on this because of their religion that these terrorists have used as a crutch to affect their pathetic and sad purposes. And remember, if you get angry and not terrorized, they lose. And yet in a way, they win, in perpetrating their anger and violent beliefs, their us against them and they are the demon paradigm.

Someone posted this meme today. I'm sure they meant well and I'm sure they are angry. So am I. Although I pretty much agree with this meme, even I found it offensive. This simply isn't how to do this. It's not accepting responsibility for it either, to post anonymously. It's not being brave. It's just not useful. It satiates in the same vein that mentally small people who become terrorists are satiated by their killing and martyrdom.

Part of my charter in here on my blog is looking forward, understanding and fixing what is broken. Or at least openly discussing it.

So I modified this meme and posted it, taking full responsibility for it.

When I did, I got a chill in the consideration of what this could entail. I posted it with hashtags on the three top terror related and Islamic tags. I don't think I'm anybody. I'm nobody. Just like the terrorists. A nobody. But as things are today, a silly video someone puts out gets millions of hits in a day unexpectedly, or someone says something offhandedly and they find themselves on an international news or media show.

We never know anymore who will get their fifteen minutes or more of fame. I'm nobody but just like terrorists, should they come at me they could turn a nobody into a somebody overnight and yet, my name would live on and theirs? They name would fade into a sorry past of themselves, their family, their history, into the nothing they built themselves into being.

I suddenly thought of Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's excellent novel, Slaughterhouse Five and his demise, his lifelong knowledge all his life of how it would all end for him...at a lecture he would one day give in his future. I do hope this doesn't lead to my carrying a gun forever from now on, or dying at a book signing some day because of some violent deluded faux Islamic activist.

But we have to stand up to these mindsets, these people, this kind of thing.

If you want to have a religion in these times it cannot contain beliefs or actions like in saying, no one can draw a picture of your religious leader, saint or prophet. You certainly have no right to kill someone over your religious beliefs.

And you sure as hell have no right to kill someone over a God Damned cartoon! What are you? Two years old, with a gun, or bomb?

And so I put my name on the redone meme. 

I accidently posted the wrong one at first and now that is out there forever too even though I quickly took it down and put up the right one (a change from having labeled it as JZMurdock.com and then instead to Murdockinations.com going from my personal web site to my blog). 

I thought giving my name so directly was just making it too easy for them and instead I offered a location where people could post for or against me to mouth off to me online and from anywhere if they feel like it.

Better to yell at me here than shoot someone in their proximity. At least it has the potential for that.

Artists, cartoonists, journalists and comics are not violent.

Terrorists are.

It is the job of the artistic and journalistic communities to disrupt our status quo when it is incorrect or ignorant. But they do not kill or harm people. If people are mentally harmed by them it is an issue within those individuals or their community. That does not mean they should take up arms and harm other human beings.

There is a biblical phrase, "an eye for an eye". You do not retaliate unduly, but appropriately. I would throw away the ancient and juvenile biblical form altogether. Retaliation is ridiculous. Appropriate action is sane and intelligent, toward the goal of achieving a peaceful status quo.
It is our artist's and journalist's job to open our eyes.

To non-Muslims, do not group them all together.

Muslim's, do not be a part of the problem.

It our job as individuals and members of society and the human race to open our eyes. To see reality through the filter of life, not just history. Especially when you come to learn how much history, even biblical history is inaccurate, and how it no longer fits the world today.

Parts of it surely do, but you have to pick your way through and see things in a way many times in order to make it appropriate. Which calls into question the entire endeavor. It is best not to harm others in your pursuit therefore, of what path you have chosen through you own religious tome and current theists leader's interpretation of said tome. As with the physician's pledge, do no harm.

My reworked, more positive and better meme

Sometimes we have to stand up and face the music. 

Even if we don't like the tune.

And good grief, stop support shaming!

Remember slut shaming? Now we have supporter shaming....stop it.

Those who shoot down people changing their Facebook photo to exhibit the French flag, or making some other small token of French support, stop shooting them down in order to make yourself feel superior! 

Anything helps! 

Something is more than nothing. 

Talking about how we can do more is best, but chastising people for meaning well, for exhibiting support in any small or large way, does nobody any good. If you have suggestions on how to support in better ways, fine, share them, but share them in a positive supportive way. Not in ways that make people not want to show support. The more people who are obviously on the side of good, of the victims, is good. 

We cannot know everything (as in the Beirut attack), we cannot do everything. Everyone can support in their own way. Some are not as brave as others, does that make their efforts worthless when their small token or sign of support may inspire someone who makes a far greater effort? No. All efforts are efforts and affect he overall zeitgeist of support. 

If you have support shamed, consider yourself duly shamed.

‪#‎ISLAM‬ ‪#‎Terrorism‬ ‪#‎ISIS‬

https://www.facebook.com/JZMurdock

Have a great Veteran's Day!

"Have a great Veteran's Day." I find that a hard thing to say. It has so much associated with it. There is good but there is also so much bad, so much that evokes that thankfully most civilians will never fully understand. Or because of our Vets efforts, they will never experience those things unless they enter military service themselves, but at least not on our home ground, not among our countrymen within the confines of our homelands.

But setting aside the negative....

Thank you retired Vets for your Service, and to those actively serving, as well as to those soon to be old enough who will one day themselves serve.

Vets have assured this country came into existence, kept it existing, and continue to do so. I served myself now many years ago and it always meant so much when you felt respect from civilians when finding out you are in the service.

When I was in the Air Force I very seldom had anyone show they felt any kind of appreciation in my serving. I was lucky. I got neutrality. I came after the disdain the military were held in during Vietnam.

I was also enheartened after Iraq when I saw people start to think well of our military and even to get into a habit of saying "thank you for your service" to our Vets. In realizing by that time even if we were against a war, we weren't against our sons and daughters of our nation who were fighting and dying, regardless. We may disagree with those who send our Vets to war, but it is their duty to follow orders, not decide whom to fight.

Take our thanks in all you have done for us and all you have had to go through on our behalf. Thanks from those who don't even have the substance or integrity to support you after having sent you into harm's way, people who really don't have the right to speak to you or even to hold your coat.

Thanks then to from the rest of us.

I'd like to say that America has always supported her Vets but we know that isn't really true.

The thing about that is... I have high hopes we are beginning to mature and evolve not only to a place where our peacekeepers are just that. But also that we will soon learn to send one into harm is to pick them up when they fall, to carry them home to safety, help them to heal and feel good about themselves, then send them off into the life they were fighting for and sustained with their lives, finally to enjoy those lives in their well deserved and continuing pursuit of happiness.

All the best to you our Vets!

Cheers to you all!

That being said...now a few comments that are pro people, pro military, con greed and con corporate purposes for war:

"Thank you for your military?" Regardless, we do still serve, so I'll be happy
to accept "Thank you for your service" from anyone. I understand what they mean.

I'm seeing this a lot today: "Please Don’t Thank Me for My Service/"

I get that, I really do. It's good they speak out their thoughts, it's good people review their own thoughts on this though too, if we have military feeling this way.

But he's missing the point in the same way conservatives miss the point of legal abortions. The other side of this is we can return to a much worse situation as in the Vietnam era mentality of "you served and you're scum for it".

I agree war is used for the wrong reasons and far too often. It's a process and hopefully we're growing up to a point we won't have wars at some point in the near future.

Perhaps people have to do what then to make him happy? Change their shallow phrasing, considerations and appreciations of a military person's sacrifices in having been in the military?

Especially when they haven't been.

Those in the military who never see battle are still sacrificing a part of their lives in stepping outside of civilian life and putting up with the military life and career. It's a pain, trust me. Those who see battle give up so much more, and those who die give up the ultimate sacrifice.
But it's better to accept the appreciation people have for your sacrifices than the opposite in being spit upon.

We have begun to see it's not the soldiers, but the commanders, the politicians and the nation as a whole who are to blame for wars, for these sacrifices.

I agree there is reason to be bitter in living through the shear terror of battle, especially in many of them where you cannot even consider your possible death and be proud but wonder why you are even there in the first place, for what?

I also get it that the military will always look down on civilians to some degree. It's the nature of the job. You go through hell for the civilians. No matter how good things are I suspect it may always be that way. They called us in the military the "Perfect Society". We were like civilians but better, more controlled, more attentive, more just about everything, but happy typically. But it's the same thing in civilians life, it's just that it's so much more obvious in the military. Everything is enhanced. They are a microcosm of our nation, enhanced.

But when someone tells you they are thanking you for your service, see it for what it is. See the positive in it.

Guilt, maybe. Appreciation, honor, or at very least in a shallow rote repeating of the words, an indication that you are not held to blame for society's wrongs. Take it as you do in battle and understand, ignorance is not malice. And it could all be much worse for you that it is. That's not much of a reward. But it goes hand in hand with military service.

I do appreciate his comment that if you got spit on at least you knew they had an opinion. And I know when I say the words to a vet, I understand what I am thanking them for. Maybe if they know me and my history they know I know. Maybe it's just because I lived through the Vietnam debacle but when someone now finds I had been in the military and thanks me for my service,

I do almost get misty eyed because I've experienced the opposite, and this, even vacuous commentary is still better in my mind, than everyone hating you for your service.

Well that was kind of a downer. So let's end on this:

http://www.vetsprobono.org/

A program providing Representation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Conservatives fear the DemSoc! Absolutely not, dummy....

In some ways I see Democratic Socialism as a redundancy. Certainly, one doesn't (shouldn't) fear it. Children fear concepts in that way. Conservatives, Republicans do also where fear is a primary focus, rather than intelligent consideration, appropriate actions. And so this is a note to those conservatives and republicans who need to hear these things.

There is literally nothing to fear, but fear itself! 

Well, seriously now. We're living it now, we have been for many decades. So what suddenly is so horrible about i? It's not, it's just a way for conservatives to have a way to have something to sell for people to buy as they have so little. But really you're just buying air from them, animosity, disingenuous diatribe, and ... trouble. 

The idea that socialism is something we should fear, like it's communism in 1950, is ridiculous. 

First, it's not communism. Second, it's not 1950. Third, it's not even socialism. It's a lean away from capitalism and toward fellow human beings. It's not redistribution of wealth, which is a conservative Republican codeword phrase. 

It's paying into government so they simply do the job they have been tasked to accomplish. It's paying for our government to do the jobs we don't want, shouldn't need to deal with, like maintaining the common good across our nation and protecting us so we can get one with our lives.

Good roads, schools, rational healthcare and seeing everyone is taken care of especially those who cannot take care of themselves and others of us as we fall on very hard times. Especially when those hard times are perpetrated upon us by the elite or outside forces. With the dumbing down of America, making education harder to access and more problematic, it makes sense there are now more and more people who cannot take care of themselves. But conservatives would have us ignore them. Cast them aside, because it is easy and cheap. But it is not, either.

Conservatives want people to act like sheep, just do whatever they want and they have been getting their wish, although that comes with a price. Ignorant people lead to people needing more help and guidance and the more you guide them incorrectly, the more you have problems and need to guide them. 
Conservatives have a weird combination of ideals where they don't believe you should teach someone to fish (let them learn it themselves), but then you shouldn't feed them fish either if they don't have it (they should have learned to fish), to refer to an old parable. Then they make it hard to learn to fish.

Bernie Sanders is making sense. It's not news really. It's old information he is just trying to get us to face full on, to stop the nonsense and start the actions leading to making things better...for real.

It's been this long and we still cannot get it:

"The Soul of Man under Socialism is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde in which he expounds a libertarian socialist worldview and a critique of charity.^[1] The writing of The Soul of Man followed Wilde's conversion to anarchist philosophy, following his reading of the works of Peter Kropotkin.

"In The Soul of Man Wilde argues that, under capitalism, "the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism—are forced, indeed, so to spoil them": instead of realising their true talents, they waste their time solving the social problems caused by capitalism, without taking their common cause away. Thus, caring people "seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it" because, as Wilde puts it, "the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible." - Wikipedia

Times they are a changin'....

America needs to clear her collective throat of the conservative sputum that has collected there for so many decades now.

We need to be able to breathe through passages clear and free of this miserable Republican asthma. Cough it up and spit it out into the conservative spittoon, America! Yes, it's almost full but it's on their side of the aisle where it belongs.

Times they are a changin'....

Freedom. Feel the change, feel the free air filling your lungs!

Times are a changing....

We don't need a "Big" Brother who beats us down at every turn. We need a Big "Brother" who squares his shoulders and says that we're not too heavy, who will then carry us to safety. Who will care to see we are all safe and able to be successful, not just his friends, not just his lovers, but all of his extended family.

Times they are a changin'....

I use the "he" metaphor but it could as easily be our "sister", right? Right? No. Not really. And it's not so much our brother, as it is our Dad, an old white guy (even if you're no white). But really i is more like our grandfather, those who have the souls of old codgers; in many cases of an old pervert.

Times they are a changin'....

Be afraid, those of you who have abused us for so long. Be very, very afraid. Or then again, don't even bother being afraid (though you're so good at being fearful, you probably can't stop it anyway). Because nothing you can do will stop what is about to happen.

Times they are a changin'....

Instead get on the bus with the rest of us because truly unlike you, we want to be inclusive. We don't want to cut you out. We want a cohesive and rational America who succeeds for everyone. Not just for a few.

Time they are definitely...
a changin'.

And now, this.... Ed Asner's cartoon explanation of America today.

Seeking death, destruction, murder...or, what?

What exactly is it most of us seek in life? We all seek bliss in our lives really, don't you think? Not death, not destruction, not murder, but happiness, joy...bliss, in our lives. We want to be happy. To the point that in the US Declaration of Independence the "Pursuit of Happiness" is even mentioned:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Of late there are many who think it is high time we dissolve our government and create a new one because of that passage. Yes, our government has issues. But strangely, it is those who seem most unhappy with our "big government" who would like to change it and make it just what they are railing against. To make a government where they are happy but most of the rest of us are not.

The Republican party has had many problems of late, bu it looks like they may finally be getting it, that they have been broken for a long time and it is not so much out government, as it is their party and the miserable things they have been perpetrating upon the United States and then delusionally thinking it is someone else who is doing it to them. They have exhibited delusions of grandeur and paranoia for so long they have finally imploded.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to point out that much of our misery can be self generated and self corrected. Much like the Republican party and it's ultra conservative lost sheep who have been driving the clown car over there when everyone knows, sheep can't drive.

Like it or not, seeking our bliss is all any of us really do in life. We just don't always realize it. Of course some of us do seek the opposite and revel in misery. But typically it's the same thing, their bliss meter has just gotten thrown into reverse somehow.

If you seek the opposite of what everyone else seeks, it's really just the flip side, isn't it? It's easy to just GO in the other direction, to seek the polar opposite of something. It's like pilots who find they are flying a plane upside down believing they are flying it upside right. They completely ignore their instruments to the contrary and fly right into the ground. Only realizing they have been wrong the moment they see the ground entering their cockpit windows.

Seeking your own direction is hard and all the more enjoyable a journey, even when you are seeking the wrong thing. Besides, some of us just need therapy.

The trouble with all this is this and only this. Finding bliss is a nearly impossible task. Maintaining it mostly IS impossible.

If you seek the bliss of doing any one thing, there will always be another thing that counters it in some way for you and so you although you will get your bliss, it will become corrupted, even before you begin.

That's the nature of being a human being.

One could say that we can never be happy. But it's better to say that we can. Don't you think? And yet, it's always a challenge.

One needs to find positive patterns and appreciate those and simply put off, or if need be, ignore the negative. Because life is what you make it. If you choose to see the positive and the beautiful you will stat to notice that more. If you choose to notice the negative and the ugly, then that is what you will feel there is more of in your life.

Have you heard about he number 23 enigma? As it is stated: "23 Enigma is the belief that all incidents and events associated with number 23 (e.g. which happened on the 23rd of any month) are somehow tied into a centuries-old plan, possibly, devised by THEM."

In reality it's all about pattern recognition. What's does that have to to with life, or bliss? You will stat to see what you choose to see around you and in life. If your life is truly so miserable that you find this impossible, it is one of two things. Your life truly is that horrible and there are millions around the world living that reality right now. Or, you refuse to consciously do what you need to do.

If your life is that miserable you may need to evoke change, leave your life, make massive changes, move, whatever it takes. For some there is nothing to be done and to those you have my condolences and there is nothing I can or perhaps you can, do about it.

I'm referring here however to those who can do something for most of the world is in a situation where something positive can be done. We just choose not to see it, or we do not have the option of being able to see it. Sometimes you can see change simply by walking over the top of the next hill to see what you've never seen before. But many times it is all in your head and those are the ones I'm talking to here.

What do you want to make of your life, after all?

Make it be the best it can be.

Which isn't to say that you should ignore the bad or do nothing about it. Or simply choose to not see it. Surely if there is something you can do to eliminate the bad in your life, do it. It's worth the effort although that may be a ways down the road for you from the point of that change being initiated.

Still it is to say that however things are, it is all about how you choose to make them appear to yourself within what you have to work with.

Start to smile even if you don't want to. Project to others a happiness that is infectious. Stat to look for the good around you. Start to appreciate what is good and beautiful. I used to commute daily, two hours from home to work, two hours on the way back in the afternoon. I had to drive, bus, ferry and walk.

It was getting me down after some years of this. It occurred to me one day to consider the good I might be missing. So I made up my mind to start paying attention and nearly immediately I started to see good all around me. Forms and shapes in buildings and nature that were truly beautiful. People doing things for one another, strangers helping each other, people doing a kindness that no one noticed, little things sometimes that in observing had big repercussions on me.

Oddly, that was all it took for me and suddenly my commute started to be a more enjoyable thing. I still wanted out of my commute. I wanted four hours a day back that I could be spending on my own things or with my family. Eventually I achieved that desire. But during the miserable times of still commuting I found a way to make it livable and more beautiful.

You can also find patterns in your day and break with them. When you notice that you focus on something in certain situations, find those things and make a conscious effort to break your concentration on those times and consider what is in that situation that has a positive influence on you.

Start to notice things you never notice be it the actions of an insect, a bird, a beam of sunlight, a wind blowing a piece of trash around in an interesting pattern, whatever you can find that fascinates you. Notice those things in daily life that fascinate you, that make you curious outside of the daily routine you live through, exist through, survive through each day.

There is an unending wealth of beauty, of the curious, the intriguing, that surrounds us everyday, in every moment and we tend to ignore 99% of all those things. We have to in order to pay attention to what we think is important. If you are a firefighter and you do this, you could die, o people around you could die. So take that into consideration.

Notice what you should be noticing when you should be noticing it.

It can be done. Consider... if you are miserable, just how much of that is your own doing and how much of the time you can actually do something about it.

Go forth and live your bliss. It may not be he bliss you want, but it may be a bliss the universe is offering you at that moment. Don't ignore it. Appreciate it. Revel in it. Use it. Use it to you advantage.

It may all be more "doable" than it seems. Bliss, surrounds us, if we will just let it in and if we truly want it.