Here at thatotherconservative, I generally consider myself pragmatic and consequentialist when it comes to views on political change and the avenues one must choose between to effectuate change. Yet it must be said that the way we come to make these choices has to be based on some sort of general principles to guide those specific case-by-case analyses we then attempt. One such principle which the American system of politics has seemed time and time again to ignore is that virtue generally known as patience. The ability to step back and wait for the opportune time to act based on the best information or recommendations seems generally forgotten by the mainstream media or the general public to whom they cater. Despite the casual disregard for thoughtful decision-making as a thing of the past and the more credible urgency with which politicians must act to avert impending socioeconomic crises, I will make the case that a return to simple patience must be the first step in getting to the root of our current problems, whether these patient moments manifest in the early formations of law-making or a campaign or even as the ballots are cast in the polling places or within a Congressional chamber.
No, this is not passivity or even political incoherence (as I have recently indicted the Occupy movement for falling victim to) but rather the forceful and immediate transition of political focus away from the cycle of bartering and compromise to a genuine discussion of political opinion schemas at their core. To take pieces of legislation and inject into them not merely the back and forth rain of sound bytes but rather real and responsive debate of the kind we seldom see anymore.
"How is this patience?" one might ask. Well, perhaps what I'm calling for is not patience in and of itself. At least not patience in some conventional definitions of the word. My point is that I am just as guilty as you when it comes to easily becoming plugged into Fox News or whatever ideology channel you tune into which, while entertaining, fails to accomplish much of anything except leaving a bad taste in my mouth about the way this country is headed. As such, we need the patience to turn off the TV, read through those propositions on your local ballots, and not take someone else's word for it that X policy or X candidate MUST be passed/elected now. I plan on discussing in the future more about the failure of our capitalism system to develop a truly functional system of consumer awareness to actually enforce democratic accountability where the government has so utterly failed. It is this same collective compulsion to be patient and to understand the issues for themselves that must be realized here and now.
Barack Obama rammed through the stimulus like it was a cake walk. Nancy Pelosi declared that Obamacare could be evaluated just as soon as it was passed. And who can blame them? In such an immature fashion, the American people fell for that ever elusive lure of "change" and in doing so wrote the Democrats a blank check to wreck havoc on the political sphere for as long as they did. And now we're reaping the rewards.
But it doesn't have to be this way. We can and should hold those in Washington accountable for all the experimentation with which they have clogged our economy, our culture, and our values. I sincerely hope that in these presidential debates all those watching, left or right, have an open mind toward the positions these candidates articulate. Many of us have pre-conceived notions of candidates, and they may very well be right. Yet it's not that hard for inclination to turn into devotion (as I have noticed in many supporters of certain candidates thus far). And such a cult of personality is what got us into this socioeconomic mess in the first place.
In a nutshell: Don't be passive. Don't be shy to speak your mind. But have some patience, please, in all your political decisions. The future of our country is, quite literally, at stake.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Failure of Political Incoherency in OWS
As much as I would like to let Occupy Wall Street embrace the slow, somewhat agonizing death it deserves without more disturbance or attention, I did feel it relevant to counter one particular political philosophy that seemed embedded within the movement: that impulsive desire for "non-binding consensus based collective decision making" (in the words of OccupyWallSt.org). This attractive methodology for enacting whatever form of change the demonstrators hoped for may prove alluring to the quasi-enlightened mind, yet in terms of legislative productivity, it is utterly bankrupt.
The most credible attempt at defending this lack of cohesion is an attempt to connect the "occupiers" with the protests that occurred in the name of the Civil Rights movement and later withdrawing our armed forces from Vietnam. These movements, it is argued, did not have any strong, specific policy proposal or platform, yet achieved a dramatic level of change within their day merely by citing a given flaw in the status quo, which is ultimately how the Occupy protests have been framed.
Two glaring flaws open up in this argument. First, for all its bluster, the momentum garnered by the various sites of occupation is exceedingly small in comparison with its alleged predecessors. Granted, the widespread and global nature of the protests is a bit of a novelty, but at any given time the actual numbers of such gatherings rarely top over a few thousand, with the most exaggerated claims coming from Oakland, California, where one protestor was cited as believing up to 30,000 people being in attendance (although police estimates were nearly a tenth of that number). Contrast this with the 200,000 minimum estimates for, say, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington, or protests from 1967 through 1973 against Vietnam, many of which topped the hundred thousand mark or verged on a million in participance. Polling for the movement, with questionable accuracy, has at best ascertained a massive indifference towards the protestors, with majorities of respondents more often than not remaining neutral on the subject. The fact is that the nation's workforce is simply not about to go on a coordinated strike nor will our students ditch en masse over the cries of the protestors, however legitimate one finds their message to be.
My second point is that the process by which the occupiers could hope to create change, even with a massive base of popular support, is far more murky and prone to failure than any other successful grassroots protest they attempt to emulate. Whereas massive pressure on the federal government could and did change institutionalized forms of racial inequality and led to the withdrawal from Vietnam, one cannot directly apply democratic accountability towards Wall Street. You can't vote out the 1% in the next election cycle so you have to resort to regulatory action on the part of the government in order to accomplish anything. This disconnect between the target of the occupiers' ire and the actual agents of change that could be of assistance is only exacerbated by the fact that they claim no endorsement of any politician or policy proposal. For all the cover ambiguity might give, it allows those individuals who do make up the movement to return to their local ballot boxes come election day willing to punish a fat cat or two but not certain of how to do it.
Yet success aside, this presents the hidden danger of the co-option such an organic, fluid movement was designed to prevent against in the first place. As much as they might not wish it, there will be a list of candidates to choose from in November 2012, and if the Occupy movement proves as decisively relevant as its believers would like, it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination to see politicians running under the OWS banner, grafting their personal agenda onto juicy rhetoric all too easily spun as fitting within such parameters. Only when an agenda is made public, with the potential for needed scrutiny and evaluation, does it become relevant and hopefully feasible to enact.
Perhaps this is what the protestors feared all along. Indeed, as the Obamacare debates proved, hiding behind a mound of ink that can be rushed in on a whim can be a winning strategy as opposed to legitimate deliberation. In my personal experience of policy debate, it's hard to lose if you are a moving target and don't defend anything specific. "What, you're challenging that? No, no. What I really meant was..."
And so it goes on. I'm intrigued to see how the last fading moments of the movement are spent, specifically given the emerging situation with OccupyLA and questions of those eviction notices. Will the fuss about Wall Street go away? Of course not. But to think it started with OWS is an even sillier supposition. The gridlock on Capitol Hill, worthy of blame on both sides, will not be parted like the Red Sea when a city council or two extends the eviction date on their respective Occupy camps. Hopefully the American people are beginning to catch on that we need policy focus, not impotence, in order to right the legitimate abuses that have been done to our system.
The most credible attempt at defending this lack of cohesion is an attempt to connect the "occupiers" with the protests that occurred in the name of the Civil Rights movement and later withdrawing our armed forces from Vietnam. These movements, it is argued, did not have any strong, specific policy proposal or platform, yet achieved a dramatic level of change within their day merely by citing a given flaw in the status quo, which is ultimately how the Occupy protests have been framed.
Two glaring flaws open up in this argument. First, for all its bluster, the momentum garnered by the various sites of occupation is exceedingly small in comparison with its alleged predecessors. Granted, the widespread and global nature of the protests is a bit of a novelty, but at any given time the actual numbers of such gatherings rarely top over a few thousand, with the most exaggerated claims coming from Oakland, California, where one protestor was cited as believing up to 30,000 people being in attendance (although police estimates were nearly a tenth of that number). Contrast this with the 200,000 minimum estimates for, say, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington, or protests from 1967 through 1973 against Vietnam, many of which topped the hundred thousand mark or verged on a million in participance. Polling for the movement, with questionable accuracy, has at best ascertained a massive indifference towards the protestors, with majorities of respondents more often than not remaining neutral on the subject. The fact is that the nation's workforce is simply not about to go on a coordinated strike nor will our students ditch en masse over the cries of the protestors, however legitimate one finds their message to be.
My second point is that the process by which the occupiers could hope to create change, even with a massive base of popular support, is far more murky and prone to failure than any other successful grassroots protest they attempt to emulate. Whereas massive pressure on the federal government could and did change institutionalized forms of racial inequality and led to the withdrawal from Vietnam, one cannot directly apply democratic accountability towards Wall Street. You can't vote out the 1% in the next election cycle so you have to resort to regulatory action on the part of the government in order to accomplish anything. This disconnect between the target of the occupiers' ire and the actual agents of change that could be of assistance is only exacerbated by the fact that they claim no endorsement of any politician or policy proposal. For all the cover ambiguity might give, it allows those individuals who do make up the movement to return to their local ballot boxes come election day willing to punish a fat cat or two but not certain of how to do it.
Yet success aside, this presents the hidden danger of the co-option such an organic, fluid movement was designed to prevent against in the first place. As much as they might not wish it, there will be a list of candidates to choose from in November 2012, and if the Occupy movement proves as decisively relevant as its believers would like, it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination to see politicians running under the OWS banner, grafting their personal agenda onto juicy rhetoric all too easily spun as fitting within such parameters. Only when an agenda is made public, with the potential for needed scrutiny and evaluation, does it become relevant and hopefully feasible to enact.
Perhaps this is what the protestors feared all along. Indeed, as the Obamacare debates proved, hiding behind a mound of ink that can be rushed in on a whim can be a winning strategy as opposed to legitimate deliberation. In my personal experience of policy debate, it's hard to lose if you are a moving target and don't defend anything specific. "What, you're challenging that? No, no. What I really meant was..."
And so it goes on. I'm intrigued to see how the last fading moments of the movement are spent, specifically given the emerging situation with OccupyLA and questions of those eviction notices. Will the fuss about Wall Street go away? Of course not. But to think it started with OWS is an even sillier supposition. The gridlock on Capitol Hill, worthy of blame on both sides, will not be parted like the Red Sea when a city council or two extends the eviction date on their respective Occupy camps. Hopefully the American people are beginning to catch on that we need policy focus, not impotence, in order to right the legitimate abuses that have been done to our system.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Those Silly, Simple Joys of Life
It seems like forever since I was able to sit down and have some quiet time in which to write. The few moments I considered in the past just didn't seem to present me with what I considered sufficient subject material, particularly given my pledge to stay positive in every other post I get through. For the longest time, I struggled with the belief that I couldn't come up with something worth writing about. That maybe my sense of optimism was misplaced, and that I might as well jump on the bandwagon of cynicism, given how much easier it is for one operating under such a framework to churn out seemingly endless amounts of text to perhaps an even larger body of dissatisfied people.
Well, salvation came (as it always seems to do) from the most unlikely of sources: a simple, white stain of paint on my jeans. To put a bit more context to my story, I should point out that today was one of the "set construction" days of my local theatrical production, which left me not exactly spotless after I had helped get primer onto several of our major set pieces. So as I began to type this evening, I found myself continually glancing down at my stained, dirty pants. Not exactly the most enlightening scenario, I agree. Yet this visual manifestation seemed to be trying to teach me something beyond just the obvious "take better care not to spill the paint next time, you idiot." After a few moments of reflection, it dawned on me that stains, like any other mark, can be just as much of a signifier of one's work as it is their particular failure.
Another analogy might be useful. In one of my favorite movies of all time, The Great Race, Tony Curtis' part of the Great Leslie, a masterful stuntman, driver, and womanizer, stands out with his particularly clean white clothes, which seem to dodge every potential mess they might come in contact with. Yet in the end, when he actually gets into the thick of the action in the classic pie fight scene, he emerges covered head to toe in pastry filling. Not only does it deserve a laugh or two, but it shows a level of personality that the normally aloof Leslie seemed to be lacking throughout the film. Now that he has fallen in love with the main girl and has something more to fight for than simple glory, he can't but help take a pie to the face.
As silly as it may seem, it is really these simple joys of coming out of a hard days work with a few stains to show for it that make life a bit brighter. If we never had to worry about the aches and pains of daily life, I'd feel more than a bit bored myself. I'm not asking that we all go out and become workaholics. Quite the opposite. I just feel that in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, it'd be nice to take the time to look down at the scuffs on your shoes, the stains on your shirts, not as a measure of your cleanliness but as a reminder of the finite, limited, imperfect, yet wonderful world we live in. A world that, when you truly engage it, will have its shares of scratches and aches, but which subsequently is all the more exciting to truly live in.
Well, salvation came (as it always seems to do) from the most unlikely of sources: a simple, white stain of paint on my jeans. To put a bit more context to my story, I should point out that today was one of the "set construction" days of my local theatrical production, which left me not exactly spotless after I had helped get primer onto several of our major set pieces. So as I began to type this evening, I found myself continually glancing down at my stained, dirty pants. Not exactly the most enlightening scenario, I agree. Yet this visual manifestation seemed to be trying to teach me something beyond just the obvious "take better care not to spill the paint next time, you idiot." After a few moments of reflection, it dawned on me that stains, like any other mark, can be just as much of a signifier of one's work as it is their particular failure.
Another analogy might be useful. In one of my favorite movies of all time, The Great Race, Tony Curtis' part of the Great Leslie, a masterful stuntman, driver, and womanizer, stands out with his particularly clean white clothes, which seem to dodge every potential mess they might come in contact with. Yet in the end, when he actually gets into the thick of the action in the classic pie fight scene, he emerges covered head to toe in pastry filling. Not only does it deserve a laugh or two, but it shows a level of personality that the normally aloof Leslie seemed to be lacking throughout the film. Now that he has fallen in love with the main girl and has something more to fight for than simple glory, he can't but help take a pie to the face.
As silly as it may seem, it is really these simple joys of coming out of a hard days work with a few stains to show for it that make life a bit brighter. If we never had to worry about the aches and pains of daily life, I'd feel more than a bit bored myself. I'm not asking that we all go out and become workaholics. Quite the opposite. I just feel that in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, it'd be nice to take the time to look down at the scuffs on your shoes, the stains on your shirts, not as a measure of your cleanliness but as a reminder of the finite, limited, imperfect, yet wonderful world we live in. A world that, when you truly engage it, will have its shares of scratches and aches, but which subsequently is all the more exciting to truly live in.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Love Labour's Lost
For all my somewhat-inflated love of the arts, I cannot claim to always understand or accurately comment on the politics that dominates Hollywood and its associated web of intrigue. Yet for the love of God, my stomach was so sickened by the news that our beloved heroine, the very Kim Kardashian herself, has so hastily snipped the sacred bond of marriage, that I was compelled to say a few words on the matter. Yet I was not the first to notice this lovely piece of news, and so Ms. Kardashian has evidently given a response to her fans concerning the break-up. Here is a brief snippet of the garbage I allowed my screen to be temporarily defamed by (courtesy of SeattlePi):
Yet the will of her fans was not the sole factor in her short span of marriage. No, Ms. Kardashian, like any level-headed woman, wants "a family and babies and a real life so badly." Being the grammar Nazi that I am, I just had to say the use of conjunctions was a bit disgusting. That aside, there is also the implicit acknowledgement here that her life, at least outside of marriage, isn't exactly "real." At least on this yours truly concurs. Beyond my analysis of the substance (or lack thereof) as presented by Ms. Kardashian, I am thoroughly stunned by this awful contortion of family life. True, in many cases, the couple's relationship seems to selfishly crowd out the equally relevant role of procreation. Ms. Kardashian, on the other hand, goes off the other deep end, implicitly placing her ex-husband on the bottom of the considerations that went into her tying the knot. Not that Mr. Humphries is himself dying from neglect, but any compounding selfishness doesn't make the debacle any better. This urge towards a "real life" also serves to equate the maternal instinct to a time-sensitive compulsion, a "phase," that doesn't do justice to the numerous sacrifices mothers make, even on those occasions in which they don't desire to "so badly" do so.
Whew. As fun as this post has been to write, the subject matter is just too outrageous for me to contribute any further to the god-like status of Ms. Kardashian. The bottom line is that Ms. Kardashian has her life rather out of tune, and its better she let her failures die quietly rather than use them as another excuse to satiate her hunger for attention. Hopefully this abysmal situation is enough to wake up her fellow hedonists to the reality of their sad existence.
The sheer immaturity of these statements is unbelievable, but immature they are. Most striking is the absurd rationale behind Ms. Kardashian's decisions, an indication of her broader priorities. First on this unbalanced list is the not wanting "to disappoint a lot of people," aka I'm a slave to societal demand, even to the point of determining my partner for life. I could continue bashing this pathetic opinion schema yet why do so when, in all honesty, such decision calculus is not at all uncommon in our culture. Open a feminine magazine and peruse for a few moments—it shouldn't be all that difficult to understand the extent to which the self-worth of our women is dictated by popular opinion and the attention they garner from adhering to such opinion.
"When I probably should have ended my relationship, I didn't know how to and I didn't want to disappoint a lot of people," she writes."I want a family and babies and a real life so badly that maybe I rushed into something too soon," she says.
Yet the will of her fans was not the sole factor in her short span of marriage. No, Ms. Kardashian, like any level-headed woman, wants "a family and babies and a real life so badly." Being the grammar Nazi that I am, I just had to say the use of conjunctions was a bit disgusting. That aside, there is also the implicit acknowledgement here that her life, at least outside of marriage, isn't exactly "real." At least on this yours truly concurs. Beyond my analysis of the substance (or lack thereof) as presented by Ms. Kardashian, I am thoroughly stunned by this awful contortion of family life. True, in many cases, the couple's relationship seems to selfishly crowd out the equally relevant role of procreation. Ms. Kardashian, on the other hand, goes off the other deep end, implicitly placing her ex-husband on the bottom of the considerations that went into her tying the knot. Not that Mr. Humphries is himself dying from neglect, but any compounding selfishness doesn't make the debacle any better. This urge towards a "real life" also serves to equate the maternal instinct to a time-sensitive compulsion, a "phase," that doesn't do justice to the numerous sacrifices mothers make, even on those occasions in which they don't desire to "so badly" do so.
Whew. As fun as this post has been to write, the subject matter is just too outrageous for me to contribute any further to the god-like status of Ms. Kardashian. The bottom line is that Ms. Kardashian has her life rather out of tune, and its better she let her failures die quietly rather than use them as another excuse to satiate her hunger for attention. Hopefully this abysmal situation is enough to wake up her fellow hedonists to the reality of their sad existence.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Hope for the Helpless
In keeping with my pledge to dedicate some posts to more optimistic topics, it would seem appropriate to comment on the recent "miracle" in Turkey. This last Sunday, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake shattered Eastern Turkey, destroying a some 2,000 buildings and causing at least 534 people as of now. Yet amidst this terrible disaster comes a story of hope that perhaps rescue efforts are paying off and saving lives (from the Telegraph):
So what can we take from this? First, the culture of death is NOT representative of the wishes of the world as a whole. Perhaps it dominates our media and the popular culture images we are bombarded with, but all it takes a bit of spotlight, a countering "image" to wake up the good that does exist within humanity. This stresses the importance of building positive media power that can successfully impact culture for Christ and render the value of life, especially unborn life, visible. There is a reason Planned Parenthood and their cohorts fear the ultrasound. They understand all too well the power of knowledge to awaken concern for life, and they will do everything they can to stop the spread of pro-life messages in the mainstream media. But the relentless advance of technology means all their efforts to deny this cause cannot hold back what remains embedded within each human heart.
We can and we will prevail, so long as every sidewalk before every abortion mill becomes an "occupation" of hope for those condemned within. So long as every action we take both among our friends and in front of the ballot box gives testimony to the fact that we have not lost sight of dignity of the human person. This, I am confident, is the future we are moving towards. It is only a matter of time, and may we pray this time is mercifully short. Human life is in the balance.
This relatively surprising development obviously should push the rescuers to renew their efforts and hopefully save more lives. Yet another less obvious premise underlies the story and the attention that has been given to this wonderful event: the fact that culture still values life. The fact that a new-born's survival can become a "beacon of hope for...thousands" clearly indicates that life, especially the life of the helpless, remains something that people, even those in dire need, cherish dearly.The family made international headlines as three generations - baby, mother and grandmother - were pulled from under the rubble of a collapsed apartment block in Ercis, 48 hours after the earthquake hit eastern Turkey.The image of the new-born baby in the arms of a rescuer became beacon of hope for the thousands of families affected by the quake.
So what can we take from this? First, the culture of death is NOT representative of the wishes of the world as a whole. Perhaps it dominates our media and the popular culture images we are bombarded with, but all it takes a bit of spotlight, a countering "image" to wake up the good that does exist within humanity. This stresses the importance of building positive media power that can successfully impact culture for Christ and render the value of life, especially unborn life, visible. There is a reason Planned Parenthood and their cohorts fear the ultrasound. They understand all too well the power of knowledge to awaken concern for life, and they will do everything they can to stop the spread of pro-life messages in the mainstream media. But the relentless advance of technology means all their efforts to deny this cause cannot hold back what remains embedded within each human heart.
We can and we will prevail, so long as every sidewalk before every abortion mill becomes an "occupation" of hope for those condemned within. So long as every action we take both among our friends and in front of the ballot box gives testimony to the fact that we have not lost sight of dignity of the human person. This, I am confident, is the future we are moving towards. It is only a matter of time, and may we pray this time is mercifully short. Human life is in the balance.
Monday, October 17, 2011
What We Should Learn from Israel's Courage
Today marked yet another example of Israel being the grown-up in Palestine, formally beginning the process of swapping some 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to reclaim captured Israeli Sergeant Gilad Shalit. Hamas of course began celebrating their "victory," having reclaimed not a few notorious murderers back into their ranks. Yet in the face of all of this, the Israeli people have stood their ground, indicating in polls that they value the life of a single soldier over the potential security they could have ensured with those terrorists locked up.
Now here are a people who don't need a U.N. mandate to do the right thing.
Back home in the greatest nation on the planet, we have been busy making a pathetic mockery of courage. I think I speak for many Americans when I say I am annoyed to no end by the incessant news of more and more foolish protestors lining up Wall Street (and elsewhere), believing that, in spite of all the chaos and calamity of their fractious movement, they somehow represent, the words of the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, "courage and strength." I think a brief perusal of any of the numerous videos live from the "occupied" locations should give those believing such statements pause.
"But that's just the corporate media feeding you selective lies!" cry the hurt protestors. Well, then, please expand my narrow view of the situation by providing media evidence to the contrary.
No, in countlessly-blessed America deserting one's work, clogging arteries of transportation for weeks on end, and perpetually babbling past one another about the various gripes you have with society...THAT my friends is courage. It's in times like these when it makes me have doubts about the point of prosperity (earned by the immeasurable efforts of those who came before us) if it breeds a culture which can so readily wish to throw it all away.
Listening to Michael Medved this afternoon further crystallized the sad state of the occupants' priorities. During a discussion with protestor Bill Buster, Medved repeatedly attempted, to no avail, to pry out some sort of legitimate policy plan or initiative the protestors would support. Instead, Mr. Buster repeatedly went out of his way to avoid the line of questioning, emphasizing the allegedly sorry state of free-speech as demonstrated by those "draconian" crack-downs and revocations of the protestors' permission to jam the functions of their respective localities.
So sad, then, is the disparity of attention given to Buster and his flock when compared with what I consider true icons of courage, especially in the arena of free-speech. Here we are in the middle of the 40 Days for Life campaign, in which thousands of (yes, I'll say it) brave and committed folks from all walks of life unite in front of their local abortion facility to demand an end to the greatest injustice of them all. This is the greatest manifestation of cold-blooded corporate exploitation: the abortion facility. But according to the mainstream media, that's just not relevant. The cries of those ignorant masses, after all, are a good deal louder than the silent scream of the unborn as they are hacked to pieces. And the show goes on.
So I salute those few courageous souls we can look to now. From daily persecution to the occasional rocket strike or car bomb, the Israeli people have seen it all, and I can never claim to fathom the great force of endurance they cling to. I just hope in some way, some how, we as a nation can better learn to understand and appreciate courage when we see it, even if the wars we wage at home aren't displayed on every TV screen or continually dominating the updates on Google News. There are too many lives depending on it.
Now here are a people who don't need a U.N. mandate to do the right thing.
Back home in the greatest nation on the planet, we have been busy making a pathetic mockery of courage. I think I speak for many Americans when I say I am annoyed to no end by the incessant news of more and more foolish protestors lining up Wall Street (and elsewhere), believing that, in spite of all the chaos and calamity of their fractious movement, they somehow represent, the words of the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, "courage and strength." I think a brief perusal of any of the numerous videos live from the "occupied" locations should give those believing such statements pause.
"But that's just the corporate media feeding you selective lies!" cry the hurt protestors. Well, then, please expand my narrow view of the situation by providing media evidence to the contrary.
No, in countlessly-blessed America deserting one's work, clogging arteries of transportation for weeks on end, and perpetually babbling past one another about the various gripes you have with society...THAT my friends is courage. It's in times like these when it makes me have doubts about the point of prosperity (earned by the immeasurable efforts of those who came before us) if it breeds a culture which can so readily wish to throw it all away.
Listening to Michael Medved this afternoon further crystallized the sad state of the occupants' priorities. During a discussion with protestor Bill Buster, Medved repeatedly attempted, to no avail, to pry out some sort of legitimate policy plan or initiative the protestors would support. Instead, Mr. Buster repeatedly went out of his way to avoid the line of questioning, emphasizing the allegedly sorry state of free-speech as demonstrated by those "draconian" crack-downs and revocations of the protestors' permission to jam the functions of their respective localities.
So sad, then, is the disparity of attention given to Buster and his flock when compared with what I consider true icons of courage, especially in the arena of free-speech. Here we are in the middle of the 40 Days for Life campaign, in which thousands of (yes, I'll say it) brave and committed folks from all walks of life unite in front of their local abortion facility to demand an end to the greatest injustice of them all. This is the greatest manifestation of cold-blooded corporate exploitation: the abortion facility. But according to the mainstream media, that's just not relevant. The cries of those ignorant masses, after all, are a good deal louder than the silent scream of the unborn as they are hacked to pieces. And the show goes on.
So I salute those few courageous souls we can look to now. From daily persecution to the occasional rocket strike or car bomb, the Israeli people have seen it all, and I can never claim to fathom the great force of endurance they cling to. I just hope in some way, some how, we as a nation can better learn to understand and appreciate courage when we see it, even if the wars we wage at home aren't displayed on every TV screen or continually dominating the updates on Google News. There are too many lives depending on it.
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