Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Proud to be an American

I've always found those bumper stickers to be absurd. It's not something you accomplished, dummy, you just happened to be born here. That doesn't make you better than other people and it doesn't reflect any credit on you.

If you want a reason to be proud, you should do what you can to make the United States live up to the ideals people want to ascribe to it. You know, liberty and justice for all?(The pledge, by the way, was written by a socialist, and the "under God" trash was added later.) Beacon of freedom, inclusiveness, I lift my lamp beside the golden door?

On this July 4, with American democracy in grave peril, I won't be able really to celebrate anyway because I have to fly to D.C. this afternoon in order to provide a service to the federal government. I'm not supposed to say exactly what I'll be doing because it's the policy of the agency that peer reviewers remain anonymous. (Other federal agencies have different policies.) In any case, broadly speaking, the U.S. government has long promoted science and public health; now we have a ruling party that repudiates science and doesn't want the government to any longer "promote the general welfare." The country belongs to 1%, obscenely wealthy white people who just want to pull up the ladder behind them while their agent, a vulgar, ignorant, narcissistic, sexist, racist, pathological liar distracts their victims with a show of tribalism and phony toughness.

I'll be waving a tiny flag.

10 comments:

Don Quixote said...

Bravo.

The little flag that hypocrites like Drumpf wear on their lapels is a sick joke. "I'm wearing a flag! How could I be a Russian stooge? See, I'm patriotic! I'm wearing a flag!"

Actions speak infinitely louder than words.

I wish I'd been born a Canadian. Or Estonian. Or Swede. Or ...

If "corporations are people" (Mitt Romney), then why can't I just set up operations in Indonesia or Taiwan, like corporations do?

Open borders for all! Let the water of citizenship seek its own level.

Let those who repudiate science be refused medical treatment at hospitals, at ERs, and by EMTs. Because the science that cures and prevents diseases is the very same science that detects global man-made climate disaster, determines when an embryo takes on human characteristics, and shows that all humans--from the greatest African-American jazzman or jazzwoman to the lowliest, scummiest president--are 99.9% identical genetically.

And let's pass a constitutional amendment that prevents us from attacking any country whose name we can't pronounce (there would have never been a war on "eye-RACK"), or from using weapons we can't pronounce (we could never use "NOO-kyoo-ler" weapons).

Happy July 4th, everybody! Practice independence by opening your eyes and remembering that the guys buried in the Granary Cemetery were willing to die for it. Turn off the TVs and realize that your lives are more important to you than "celebrities'" lives. Celebrity means NOTHING. Principles mean all--and, as Paul Saginaw says, "Principles ain't principles till they cost you something." Actions are all. To quote Hillel, "The rest is commentary."

Anonymous said...


Dear Cervantes,

I'm sorry that you're not happy. Such progress has been made!

Diverse Presidency
Diverse Supreme Court
Lowest unemployment among blacks in history
Record low unemployment among Hispanics
Record low in new unemployment insurance claims
Number of food stamp claims seem to heading South
Tight jobs market which will certainly help raise wages
Halt to threatening missiles from the North Korea regime
NATO members finally being pushed to keep financial commitments they, themselves, made
World trade imbalances and tolerance of intellectual property theft by China and others are being addressed

If you let the 'perfect' be the enemy of the good, you will always be disappointed.

Happy 4th to you and thank you for your posts.

Anonymous said...

Hah! "Diverse Presideny" and "Diverse Supreme Court"

These comments by the racist "Anonymous" mean that people with brown skin have occupied these positions.

I'm a Jewish Caucasian and my skin is infinitely "browner" than that of Clarence "Long Dong Silver" Thomas, the sex addict/idiot/self-hating African-American married to a trashy Caucasian woman who never ever should have been on the court.

"Anonymous" is also an idiot in referring to "Lowest unemployment among blacks"--or anyone, for that matter--and "Anonymous" obviously is not a working guy because people are working two, three, and four jobs to just try to stay afloat. Most Americans have no retirement savings and pensions are disappearing. The Republicans, Ryan et all, and of course Shitler himself want to take away Social Security.

I could go on but let's remember that a man like Shitler is in power because of idiots like "Anonymous" who see only what they want to see. And they continue to be blind to their own racism, through which they continually divide the human world into groups based on color.

Shame on you, you persistent, annoying, inconsequential moron.

Don Quixote said...

I don't know if there is a god, but you get my sentiment when I say, "god bless free speech!"

https://averagejoey.bandcamp.com/track/fuck-the-united-states-spoken-word

Don Quixote said...

There are humans. People like "Anonymous" need to stop referring to "blacks," Hisapanics," etc. Idiots like this--and I include the media as well--perpetuate our nations disgusting, inherent racism in this manner.

BTW, Idiot: North Korea never was a threat. Only morons believe this. The USA is the real threat, with enough nuclear bombs to obliterate the whole world many times over. A flea like N. Korea would be summarily squashed if it attacked the USA and even maybe if it didn't, since Shitler is our first president--as nauseating as that thought is--willing to use preemptive force.

The whole "N. Korea situation" is a chimera. Look that word up, dickhead. That way you'll at least have learned SOMETHING on this site. 'Cause you sure as fuck don't ever seem to learn anything else.

Mark P said...

Anyone who thinks that the threat of missiles or nukes from North Korea has been reduced as a result of the meeting between Trump and Kim is as deluded as Trump himself. Recent developments put the lie to that notion, not that actual evidence or facts will change minds that are set in concrete.

Anyone who knows anything about North Korea, or who might have listened to someone who did, would realize that NK will not willingly give up the main thing that gives them leverage over the US and in Asia. It doesn't matter whether NK would ever use their missiles and nukes. It's only necessary for them to possess them to help ensure that the US won't invade NK like we did Iraq. Of course, with the current administration (or lack thereof), who knows what might happen late one tweetin' evening.

Anonymous said...

Mark,
No one is saying Trump solves the NK problem. I just said there was a halt to the threatening middles, and there is.
Maybe you could blockage about the great economy or the great job market or even about the low unemployment.
Maybe you can find something to hate about those as well

Anonymous said...

typing on a cellphone sux

Don Quixote said...

What a red herring ... a little country with maybe a nuclear weapon or two vs a behemoth with thousands of them, as well as the means to deliver them.

No one wants to die. Kim Jong Un is a human. He is not crazy. Using a nuclear weapon would mean obliteration. The media and our US government like to create bogeymen ... Saddam, Osama bin Laden, etc. The enemy is never us.

Well, guess what? It IS us! We are our own enemy. And you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist (I'm not one) to see that the US economy is bolstered by what Eisenhower called the "Military/Industrial Complex." We stay at war, all of the time ... we're constantly bombing all over the globe. We (the US) are the greatest threat to world peace. We posture out the wazoo ... but we don't WANT peace in the Middle East. We don't WANT what's good for people. We insanely want what's good for McDonnell Douglas, Raytheon, etc. And that's what we're doing.

Creating dire causes--no matter how asinine, like "weapons of mass destruction" that don't exist in Iraq, or a guy in a cave in Afghanistan who can somehow magically destroy us all ... or "commies" ... or, as now, a dictator in a pseudo-nuclear country ... they're all red herrings.

But a ton of ignorant Americans fall, over and over, for the same bullshit ... every time!

We need education. We need a populace with critical thinking skills to see when it's "leaders" are jackasses (Bush, Cheney, Drumpf, etc.). Till that happens, it'll be the same ol' razzle-dazzle.

Self-interest is the only reason we're not extinct yet. The same force that keeps all those other people you wouldn't trust farther than you can spit from staying on their side of the double yellow line when you go for a drive--that's the same thing that keeps reckless men from already having destroyed us all. But we're still on that path.

Once and for all: the N. Korea "threat" does not exist and is just one more bullshit manufactured "crisis" to cow the gullible public.

But a lot of ignorant Amerkican

Don Quixote said...

Extra line there at the end ... as well as an "it's" instead of an "its."

Can't help proofreading myself. It's a good habit.