Day #11 - Kinesthetics - Reaching out and Touching the Nations of the World

Foreign Policy.  Fah.  Let's go for what this really is, America.  Call the kettle black already.  America loves to stick it's big nose...as well as its sticky fingers where it doesn't belong.  Right smack dab in the middle of other people's business.

Oh, we disguise it well.  We call it "Political Concern"..."helping our neighbors keep the peace", "Establishing Democracy where it's needed".  Again, I say "Fah".  There's a reason we do this, and I hate to inform you of this, but it isn't helping anybody.  I'm sorry, what I really meant to say is, it doesn't help anyone...except us.  Our motives are very much selfish, of this you can be sure.  Do you really imagine that, when we help people "rebuild" after we blow them to bits, that these people say "Wow...those wonderful Americans, I'm so glad they're here."  You have to be joking.  No, we have our reasons.  Let's shake down at least one of the most vivid examples we have.

They blew up the center of financial dealings in our country.  The symbol of our power.  The highest buildings we have, the Twin Towers.  Because of this, we took our troops to the middle east to get the man responsible.   Osama Bin Lama, the most feared terrorist we knew of.  But wait, this man was no terrorist.  No, Osama was one of our dearest friends.  G.W.'s relative Ex-President George Bush took very good care of this man, and his family.  Heck, we even shuffled his family out of the country first, before we invaded Osama's supposed hiding place in the middle east.  And then, when we couldn't "find him", we then blamed a whole different country and demolished their capital, then transplanted some of our "Democracy" over there for them to experience.  We then decided, since we weren't getting very far on our "Find Osama" mission (not that we looked very hard),  to "take our revenge" out on a guy we hated a lot back in the day, Sadam.  Was it because they were harboring the terrorists responsible for our problems in the U.S.?  Hell no.  The war, and everyone that died for it was one big dupe.  Done in the name of freedom for Americans.  Freedom from fear, and freedom from Terrorists.  Bull.  Hockypucks.  No, we did it for purely selfish reasons, believe it.  But hey, we got that Sadam, just like we promised we would someday...and bonus, we got a foothold into a country that had plenty of gas and oil stored up....no, nothing selfish here.

Oh, we don't have to stop there.  Noooooo......Let's go to Vietnam.  A "police action".  Done to remove the oppression of Communists trying to recover South Vietnam.  Oh, and let's not forget Korea.  Same thing.  Modern examples you ask?  Russia.  China.  The "Continuing war in Afghanistan".  Unbelievable.  You think the citizens of any of the aforementioned people were thrilled the U.S. "came to their rescue"?  I can count them all on my numerous fingers and toes.  After that, there were an awful lot of ungrateful citizens, make no mistake.

Let's look to a few that are a bit closer.  The Philippines.  Guam.  Puerto Rico.  If you're thinking these people were happy to have us meddle in their affairs, nothing could be further from the truth.

The thing I love the most is, we hardly need a reason.  No, we're HAPPY to do it.  We ENJOY meddling, hell, it's in our nature, as U.S. Citizens, to help the little guy out.  Having problems in your homeland?  We'll take care of it.  You can handle it yourselves?  Nahhhhhh.....no really, we INSIST!!  And don't worry, if we blow up 3/4 our your country in the process, we'll help you rebuild, don't worry.

Did we really need to stop Communism?  No, it pretty much took care of itself, as I remember.  Russia quit, cold-turkey.  1/2 of Germany, no problems losing communism there.  China, Korea and North Vietnam are about our only hold-outs.  And we had major wars in both Korea and Vietnam...and all we got out of those were, instead of Communist neighbors...we now have REALLY pissed off neighbors.

Here's another one I love...Natural disaster relief.  Hey!!  Mr. President...eyes FRONT (or for those of you in the military, tennn...SHON!)!  Look around you!  Plenty of disaster 'round here pal.  Pain and death are the natural way of things.  And all those communists we fought back...are still in place, and we're...well, we got killed.  Death, whether experiencing it or doling it out is something we're getting very good at.

Day 11, 15 to go.

Day #10 - Justice, American Style...or was it English Style to begin with? Who can say...

I would have to say, if I were to plant my finger solely on what's wrong with our system of justice, it'd have to be squarely pointed at ourselves.  We let the problem continue, we roll over when laws are passed, and we just open our wallets without flinching when fines are implemented or raised.  But since I don't really want to condense every blog I've done on this into this one, I'll plant that finger on the second most problematic:  Our outdated constitution, and our stupidity at clinging to it like it's the Holy Bible.  Worse yet, like other things that are held as scripture, we've interpreted it so much that most of it, when read by Joe Average, is so twisted we don't quite know what these things say anymore.  Because we leave it to our judges to interpret as they see fit (and as we go on) the original meanings are bent beyond recognition.  Like the Bible, it's true meaning is lost in translation...literally.

I'll throw out a couple of examples, then leave the rest in your hands.

My favorite is the the 2nd Amendment, the one concerning the right to keep and bear arms.  Because of this "right", we Americans are the most armed nation in the world.  "And this is a bad thing?" you ask?  I'd say so.  In 2009, just 5 years ago, there were estimated to be 310 MILLION guns owned by citizens in the U.S.  This figure does NOT include anyone in the military.  In 2010, there were over 8,000 murders committed in the U.S. with a firearm or pistol of some sort.  88% of Americans own at LEAST one firearm.  There were 56 gun related deaths in England.  Only 6% of their citizens own guns.  Hmmmmm....let's see...what's wrong with this picture.

This is all because some nut job, nearly 200 years ago said we have the right to keep and bear arms.  Do you think maybe this language should be applied to our time just a little differently??  Enough said.

Oh, and by the way, one more crack at the NRA...and yes, Letter N will cover this well:  Congress passed a bill granting law enforcement around the country to receive post Cold War military gear and weapons, to be used as they see fit.  WHAT??  Bet old Georgy boy never saw that one comin'.

As far as justice and the system we have in place, there are very obvious things wrong.  There shalt be no illegal searches and siezures, but it happens tens to hundreds of times a day these days (see www.copblock.org, or look up "police brutality" on Youtube).  Innocent until proven guilty...but we're going to put you in jail if we suspect you anyway, just in case you get a little frog-like, and jump.  You have the right to council...if you can afford it, which a good portion of us can't anymore.  So, in that case, you're going to be appointed with a lawyer by the justice system.  Chances are, since he's probably doing this for next to nothing, he's not going to be real experienced though, so good luck with that.  There will be no excessive punishment, no extremely high bails...But bail will be set at 1,000,000, and next month, you'll be sentenced to death with a lethal injection.  Getting the picture?

The Judicial branch of our government is full of holes America.  People are wrongly imprisoned, loopholes in our laws are plentiful, and we leave those laws (as well as the 200 year old paper that laid out the 10 Commandments of America) and the interpretation of it up to a murder of judges...I'm sure there's a different term, but murder just sounded right here, I'm not sure why.

For more on this, I have done up a right glorious series of blog posts named "The law....Itself, also in this blog.  It's a good read.  Look 'er up, willya?  Thanks.