Dear Mick,

I see now that even though “The One” has now been officially elected, there can be no real end to the Bush Administration. While the rest of creation is now looking forward to seeing if “ The One,” or as McCain called him—and I prefer—“ That One,” will have a positive impact on life as we know it, people like Mick are now left with an implausible situation. “Now that Bush is ‘Over’, what do I do now?” After all, Mr. Zano has spent eight years of his rather short life totally obsessed with the ‘Evil Empire,’ ‘Darth Bush,’ and a group he calls ‘the Wal-Mart Midgets.’  He has had no real life…just ask his family, his friends, his probation officers!  So now he is left with trying to re-align the rest of his life, or, (and perhaps much easier) keep the “hope” alive.  A hope that somehow The Dark One (Dick Cheney) will re-emerge with more power than before, so Mick Skywalker can teach our descendants all about how he, and others like him, single pen-dedly brought Death-Star Earth to its’ knees.  Although, I admit Cheney does kinda look like that old Darth with his helmet off (but I digress).

Mick, the last I heard this was still a democracy and, while the east and west coasters all ride in Prius’ and think that spreading my wealth around is a great idea, there is still a small matter of the rest of the god damn country!  Now, I know full well that with your exceedingly high intellect, you are of course, right, and that the gap-toothed Nascar crowd has run us face first into a black fucking hole.  However, there are a lot of us—I mean ‘them.’ So fear not, our dim-witted children will all sit around the fire to listen to your rants, er, I-mean escapades for years to come.

As far as the reasons why we got attacked, I have an idea. Why don’t you go over there and ask them. That’s it.  Bring your pen, pile all of your liberal friends into the Prius…bring the fucking Wal-Mart Midgets for all I care!  I’m sure Al-Qaeda will tell you that they really don’t hate us for: our freedom, our way of life, our dancing, our singing, our movies, our fair treatment of women.  I’m sure they’ll tell you it’s really all about Bush and the neo cons. Yeah, that’s it—that’s the ticket, yeah, it’s the neo cons, see…

Let me know how that trip works out.

Bush lost, get over it.

Yours Unruly

Goomis

Your comment about socialism has yet to be proven.  Currently Obama’s tax plan is more in line with Reagan that Lennon, or Marx.   When we shift from captilism to super captililsm tax breaks is hardly communism.  Making imaginary paper money to bail out wall street, Detroit, and Citibank, may well be much closer to communism, that Reagonomics. 

I live in one of the three hundred cities that protested the November 15^th passing of Proposition 8.  I witnessed hundreds of people spouting spiritual slogans about ‘loving others’ and caring for their ‘life partners’, awful hate-mongering ideas.  Bright rainbowy colors bounced off an army of poster board like flowery daggers of doom.  Cruising by, I felt anger well-up in the pit of my stomach for these caring thoughtful protestors.  Where were the smoke bombs, the riot gear, or the people being bodily dragged into paddywagons?  Are these people puftas or something?

The juxtaposition of world events was somehow apropos.  Bush met on this same day with world leaders to say, “Yeah, like, we suck.  I suck.  Everyone I ever appointed sucks.  Yeah…Paulson pretty much sucks too.”  Bush went on to say that the bumps you feel are car-sized asteroids smashing into the hull.  Also, we’re heading right for the sun and can’t seem to change course.”  To address the scores of world leaders shouting, “What aren’t you telling us?”  He added, “We’re almost out of coffee.”  (Don’t you miss the Zucker brothers?)

Could you imagine the mayhem that would have ensued if kernels of truth actually emerged at this summit? Maybe truth isn’t always the right option.  Such a speech would dance dangerously close to something called ‘accountability,’ and we certainly can’t have any of that.  So let’s just blame Germany.  Anyway, it’s nice to know that almost to the very day that our economy collapsed around our feet, we still had the time, funds, and vitriol to fuck with some of our friends and neighbors—makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. 

Let’s look at marriage…that dweam within a dweam.  Your church can choose to recognize any union or you personally can choose to recognize any union.  As for legal issues, please leave your bias in the pews.  This is supposed to be a time of healing.  Why get out the salt and lemon juice now?  A lot of money was raised—even amidst the Wall Street woes—to take away existing rights. 

What drove people to do this?  The world of compassionate conservatism is a farce, people.  My dad said it best, “Lately Republicans only care about you if you’re unborn, frozen, or brain dead.”  Please start to rethink your views, people, because, frankly, they suck.

In 2004, shortly before the last election, I was at a party in central Pennsylvania, then my home.  Standing in someone’s kitchen around a keg (which is a law in PA by the way), the topic naturally drifted to the upcoming election.  The man leading the conversation was not going to support Senator Kerry, because of his views on gay marriage.  Knowing, even then, that four more years of this president would end our superpower status, I had to leave.  Speaking my peace while maintaining my composure seemed unlikely.  Besides, the keg had kicked.   Why does this issue resonate with people?  Why is it so important to straight people to affirm their straightness?

I am socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.  Let me explain why this somewhat unusual combo may be the needed second-tier approach to politics.  The government can’t, nor shouldn’t, fix millions of people’s laziness and/or stupidity.  Ideally, we should focus on supporting the truly needy and help the temporarily downtrodden get back on their feet.  This is the point where we should draw the line.  This approach is both worth the money and is our moral obligation as humans.  To do more, however, actually breeds a welfare state and exacerbates a host of physical and emotional problems known as Dem-entia.  Frankly, it is not realistic even under the best of circumstances to throw money around to the perpetually undeserving.  It is a trap that Obama must avoid.  People will endlessly milk the system as they slip into lower and lower levels of consciousness.  Twenty years of social service work has taught me one thing…don’t work in the field of social services. 

Furthermore, being socially liberal means everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and, in a nut shell, even if I don’t agree with you, I’m going to leave you the hell alone (particularly if it doesn’t affect me).  People are not stopping gay marriage because they think certain couples shouldn’t share the same legal rights and privileges as other straight couples; most of these people are having a visceral response.  They are acting against gayness—it’s bigotry, nothing more, nothing less.  Allowing gay marriage does not have to shatter your worldview.  It is the nice thing to do, and it is the right thing to do.  Legislating morality, if that’s what this is, is a fool’s errand, which is why so many of our less progressive pastors (LPPs) are so busy lately (well, maybe they’ll lay off the children).  

Here is my version of the political perspective score card.  There is something to be said for libertarianism.  Our ability to progress unhindered at each level and at each stage of our personal growth is a fundamental right.  AKA, piss off.  I might even vote libertarian, if I can ever stop laughing at their choice of candidate.  There is also something to be said for liberalism, namely, other people are people too.  They have a point of view that may differ from yours but that does not make them scary, nor does it necessarily make them enemies.  Old school conservatism has fiscal conservatism and small government in its corner.  For the life of me, however, I can not think of one thing social conservatism has going for it—unless you are hip on driving this country into a third-world status.  I can’t stomach even a sip from this punch.  It is supposedly based on the importance of nurturing and maintaining someone’s idea of core American values.  This argument is essentially meaningless.  What they fail to understand is that everyone shares those values—anyone who matters, anyway.  Only they are trying to silence all dissenting views and claiming a monopoly on these so called values.

Ken Wilber asserts that we must transcend and include—that progress to higher stages is hinged on incorporating and preserving that which is fundamental and true.  The definition of marriage does not necessarily fall under this jurisdiction.  This is one core truth that needs filed or flushed.  Rigidity in this matter is part of the problem, not the solution.  Some will argue that we will lose our way; that whites will be the minority; that our numbers are dwindling, and homosexuals unions will only exacerbate this while shaking the foundations of the traditional family.  Have you wandered around lately?  Any loving parents should be hired, immediately.  They are endangered, whether the child is raised by gays, straights, or wolves.

I don’t think enraging an entire faction of our society is going to win any hearts and minds, or sway anyone to your Leave it to Beaver sympathies.  It’s not going to save your version of America.  Mutual respect is what we should be embracing.  Respect is transformational—not some definition of an ‘appropriate’ union.  If we’re going to rally around something, let’s try respect for change.  Respect is the endangered species here, right Rodney?

The bottom line is this: the backlash against religion by progressives is warranted.  The dismantling of proposition 8 is further proof of a disconnect—not a return to our roots—but a gap in reasoning the size of the Grand Canyon.  I don’t see any Osmond Christmas Specials over on Walton’s Mountain in my neighborhood.  This is the wrong battle at the wrong time.  Stopping people from marrying who they want is not going to move this world any closer to your fantasy-ass Rockwell painting.  Social conservatives deserve the wrath of Maher and Hitchens.  Unless your goal is to destroy all credibility for the spiritual-minded individuals of this world, it is time to sit the hell down, put the five-spot into the basket, and pray for some common sense. 

I do not write this column as a proud defeatocrat, as an anti-American conspiracy theorist, or even as a terminal glass-half-emptier…I’m just calling it as I sees’ it, folks.  The next president will have one hell of a time turning the ship around: we, as a country, have hit the iceberg and are taking on water.  America is at that point in The Poseidon Adventure at which we can follow either Red Buttons’ character to the stern of the ship or Gene Hackman’s to the bow.  You might be asking yourself, ‘Weren’t the folks who followed Gene Hackman rescued at the end?’  You’re not getting it…I’m casting America in the role of Shelley Winters.

Frankly, I’m amazed things have held together this long.  I’m stunned by how much stupidity ensued before our S.S. Economy listed to port. We should be proud of an economy like this—virtually unsinkable, it was.  So unsinkable, in fact, that it almost made it through eight years of Supremes mismanagement.   Stop! In the name of love, before you break my bank.  Not only has the sub-prime mortgage crises shaken us to our core, but our problems are magnified by those untold zillions pumped into Bush’s unnecessary debacle.  I’m talking about the Bush Library, of course.  How many translations of My Pet Goat does the world really need, anyway?  No, you can’t hurry jokes; no, you’ll just have to wait.

It’s easy to play the blame game after the fact, so let me break down current events instead.  Beck and Cowan’s Spiral Dynamic model begins with the ‘Red’ perspective: tribalism, wherein children shoot up our schools and terrorists fly planes into our buildings.  Really, what do you expect from people stuck on tribalism?  They’ve got issues.  The best way to deal with these folks is to meet them on a level playing field, then use artillery to level that playing field some more.  This is about the only credit I will (possibly ever) give the Bush administration.  Something did need to be done…just not any of the things we actually went and did.

Our government, namely the Bush Administration, functions at a predominately ‘Orange-Blue’ level, although it seems downright ‘red’ at times.  How is it possible to lose a PR war with a bunch of baby-strapping, suicide-bombing zealots, you ask?  For starters, you can’t win the war of ideas if you don’t have any of your own.  When your brain is attached to a political strategist named Karl, who wanders off halfway through your administration, well, trouble may be afoot.  

This ‘Blue’ level includes good old fashioned fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism supports important aspects of human development, but it’s also Bin laden with Laden’s and is fraught with Haggerts and Swaggerts.  This subject is covered in Dr. Sterling Hogbein’s riveting masterpiece, Falwell to Alms, which has yet to find a suitable publisher (and needs to be translated from his early crayon period).

‘Orange’ level is McCain Country, the Straight Talk Depress, entrepreneurs, rationalists, and a host of postmodern yumminess, lightly dusted with coconuts.  I operated from ‘Orange’ most of my life, and it was good clean fun.

Green (liberalism) is arguably a higher perspective, but they’re not ripe yet, so I wouldn’t do anything rash like vote for one.  ‘Green’ is Al Gore country, and his brand of environmental pluralism is not without merit.  Leave ‘Green’ unchecked, however, and you get fanatical efforts to save the Paraguay Paramecium, Meat is Murder homicide squads, and Operation Bake Brownies for Al-Qaeda.  In defense of folks like Gore, it isn’t easy being ‘Green.’ Surprisingly, Kermit functions on an integral level and thinks Gore is an asshole.

No matter who wins this election, we, as a nation, will have a higher-operating captain.  It may be wishful thinking, but I’m still hoping that Barack Obama is at least a ‘Yellow’ or ‘Turquoise’ level thinker (post modernist, second-tier), possibly the best colors since Bush Senior yukked on that Japanese Prime Minister, way back yen.

Even McCain’s ‘Orange’ would have been welcome over Bush’s ‘Orange-Blue.’  Some feared this political dice roll, but I’ll take my chances with a world-centric, fiercely intelligent, post modernist every time.  Staying the course is not an option.  In fact, there was never a course to stay.  They made it up as they went along—and badly at that.  It was like watching the last season of the X-Files on DMT.  Never do that by the way.  Shrooms and Robot Chicken is the only way to go.

I do implore the American people to put a priority on fixing this country, so that, if nothing else, Lou Dobbs will shut the fuck up! But he’s right, of course: we’ve given up on educating our children; we are losing the war on drugs, as well as the war on terror, and we have less actual freedom now than a gay Taliban priestess in Damascus.  (That is not a reference to the band by the same name, by the way…I love them.) It’s like Sheryl Crow always says: “Stop calling me, you fucking sicko.”  Wait, I mean the other thing she says: “A change will do you good.”  This change may be arriving a wee bit late, however, so in the immortal words of Edward R. Olbermann, “good night, and good luck.”