Absentee Democracy

 

There are always a few numbskulls who harass me with poorly constructed,
grammatically insulting rants about the fact that I have chosen to live
overseas.

They always say something like . . .

"What kind of American are you? YOU LIVE IN JAPAN!"

The answer that comes immediately to mind is . . .

"I'm the kind of American who lives in Japan."

I spent six decades growing up, living and working in America.

I have an American passport, therefore I'm an American citizen.

I pay taxes to the American government. Still! And by the way, America is 
the only country that DOUBLE TAXES their citizens who live overseas. 
I pay taxes to Japan and I pay taxes to America. Unheard of in the rest of 
the civilized world.

And frankly I have no problem with the half of my taxes that go toward
schools, education, building roads and bridges (which I no longer use),
helping those who have fallen on hard times __ e. g. unemployment
benefits, school lunch programs, Head Start, SNAP, heating assistance
subsidies __ and promoting R&D addressing health and environmental
issues.

But I DO HAVE A PROBLEM with the other half of the money they 
collect from me, which I have no say in. You know, the half of the federal 
budget that goes for the war machine we are building to take over the world, 
the money wasted on military misadventures, toppling democratically elected
foreign governments, drone murdering of innocent civilians, spying on
everyone with a pulse, wreaking havoc across the planet and creating far
more enemies than we kill, sending our best young people into battle to
protect the interests of already rich corporations. Yes, I do have a problem 
with paying those taxes. We all should.

But getting back to the xenophobic super-patriots . . .

Maybe these yokels are questioning my red-white-and-blue pedigree. Maybe 
they think somehow my all-American blood has become polluted and diluted
because I live in Japan and have a Japanese wife.

One variation of the attack is particularly amusing.

"Well, Mr. Hotshot Expat, do you vote?"

This is probably coming from someone who doesn't. But here's the skinny on 
that one.

Though I think our electoral system is corrupt, that at least at this point our
politicians are owned lock-stock-and-barrel by a tiny vainglorious and
filthy rich elite, that our two-party system is a joke and both Democrats 
and Republicans unwillingly or maybe willingly arepuppets to Wall Street 
banks and transnational corporations, that without serious immediate 
changes, democracy is effectively dead in America . . .

Though self-appointed, arrogant and misguided stewards of our electoral 
processhave disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters of color who they
have deemed unworthy of the constitutional right to have a voice in our
political system, though these exact same anti-democratic partisan
bullies have hacked up any prospect of proper representation through
gerrymandering and consigned voting to the irrelevancy of a video game
via rigged voting machines . . .

For those rubes that have never left Cottonwad County and can't find China 
on a map, one of the marvels of these amazing modern times is that you can
visit the Great Wall of China in the morning and vote in an American election 
in the afternoon. You can have breakfast at a cafe in Paris or Amsterdam or 
even Tokyo on your way to dropping off an election form at a foreign post 
office. It's called an absentee ballot. So the answer is . . .

Yes! I vote!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Revolutions Are Like Orgasms

 

Revolutions are like orgasms.

And except for a very few, very fortunate individuals, no one gets off instantly.

America isa mature country. Like the mature among us, it takes a lot longer to
get it up and achieve that much anticipated, highly welcome happy ending.

So along came Occupy Wall Street. Damn! It felt real good. Everybody 
was getting that great feeling, right there where if counts. But the federal
government, party poopers that they are, came busting the doors down.
Talk about spoiling a good time! OWS went limp, as they were being
handcuffed and carted away.

But that'snot the end of the story. That was just the beginning. We'll get that
warm tingling sensation back again. We'll get it up. Next time we're going to 
. . . who knows?

Mobilize, strike, demonstrate, boycott, banish, chide, challenge, mock, maul, maim,
 contain, deter, defy, disassociate, disconnect, discredit, disturb, disrupt . . . disrobe?

 

Well . . . whatever it takes.

And some day __ the sooner the better __ that long overdue happy ending will be ours.

Yes!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Arm Wrestling Jesus

 

I think it's about time we settle the whole Jesus/Son of God/Savior of Mankind 
thing once and for all.

After all, there's so much dispute about what Jesus said, what He did, what He 
meant, why He was here, even who He was.

Basically all of this comes down to the question about His divinity. That in one 
giant gulp swallows everything else. It's the elephant __ or maybe whale 
(see Jonah 1:17) __ in the room.

So I'm issuing a challenge to Jesus Christ personally, upon His return to Earth.

Here's my challenge . . .

When the Man-Who-Died-On-The-Cross-and-Lived-to-Tell-About-It returns to 
our sorry planet __ as we all know, this encore appearance is referred to among 
the reverent as the Second Coming __ we're going to first straight away settle the 
whole omnipotence thing.

After giving Him a few days much needed R and R to get His bearings and get
back up to Savior speed __ God knows what the jet lag must be coming that 
distance __ we're going to sit Him down to an arm wrestling contest. Yes, that's 
right. An arm wrestling contest!

Let's see what He's made of.

Let's see once and for all if He's really got the right stuff!

If Jesus wins, He will be crowned King of . . . of . . . well . . . everything.

If He loses, He owes us a big apology. Really big!. . . considering all of the 
time and money we've spent on cathedrals, churches, prayer books, pipe 
organs, hymnals, the Pope Mobile.

Let me state unequivocally, I think it's important here to pit Him against 
the best that the atheists have on their side. To be quite honest, I can't
really say I'm up to speed on atheist arm wrestling, so you folks out
there who are familiar, help me out here, by choosing from
among your heathen flock who you think can finally put Jesus in His
place. Seriously, give it your best shot! He may come off as a wimpy
preacher/philosopher/guru kind of guy __ generally these touchy-feeley
types are not exactly known for their athleticism __ but if He truly is
the Son of God and all-powerful as widely claimed, He's bringing more to
the table than steroid-soaked, pumped-up muscles. Certainly don't
underestimate Him. You might want to think David and Goliath. This calls
for brain and brawn. Jesus supposedly had a formidable bag of
tricks at His disposal first time around __ raising the dead, changing
water to wine, cripple maintenance and repair, leper healing, fishes and
loaves, water walking __ so He's definitely not a lightweight!

Folks, I'd say we're in for a real mega-event here, the veritable Super Bowl 
of Metaphysics! The World Series of Cosmology!  Why, I wouldn't be
surprised if Arm Wrestling Mania sets new pay-per-view records.

Then when this battle of the biceps is over __ and I have no personal stake 
in the outcome except for the life savings I placed on a bet with a rather 
tawdry bookie here in Japan __ I hope once and for all we have the 
answers we've been looking for and can move on to tackling the
bigger, more pressing questions of our troubled times.

Like . . .

Why did they kill off Will Gardner in the hit TV series "The Good Wife"?

WHY?!!



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Compassion Is The Fashion

 

Compassion is the love muscle of caring.

But a lot of the muscle flexing I see going on these days is more like body
building than world building. It looks great and makes the "flexer" feel
darn good about him or herself, but other than putting on an impressive
show, it doesn't get much done. And it actually may do some real harm.

Look at all of the crocodile tears over the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370.

Granted that this is a tragic, highly unexpected event. Whether pilot error,
pilot meltdown, mechanical failure, a vibrational burp in the harmonic
spectrum, or some hairline gash in the condom of the space-time continuum, 
it happened and represents a tragic loss for the families of the passengers.

But shit happens. None of us caused it. None of us can bring back to life the 
victims of this bizarre malfunction. None of us particularly needs this reminder 
that the world we live in, even those things we so fastidiously design and 
meticulously create, are not and never will be perfect. Certainly none of us 
can even do anything to prevent it from happening again. We have no idea 
even what happened.

So why themedia drama and obsessive news reports? And why the disproportionate
and OCD level of attention to a fluke, affecting 239 people who 99.9999%
of us didn't and will never know?

Well . . . we do know why the media gave this particular event so much attention. 
Yes, if it bleeds it leads. But now since the spurting of blood is down to a trickle, 
we find the story consignedto the "back pages" of the 24/7 cyber river of pseudo 
news and hand-wringing, gut-wrenching, love-muscle flexing. And like the switch
man at the local railway yard, we can send our trail of tears down another track. 
The Compassion Express is off to some brand new destination of manufactured grief.

During the unfolding of the Malaysian airliner crisis though, we really cared. 
We really felt for those victims __ the dead and their surviving relatives and friends. 
It really felt good to care about others. It really showed what a good space we were in. 
It really let those families know what a big concerned family the 7 billion of us are 
here on Earth.

Really?

Did anyonecheck with the families to see if they really wanted all that
attention? Did we forget about something called "privacy" or "solitary
mourning"? Do we actually think that mass, anonymous sharing of their
grief made any of those poor, sorrowful individuals feel any better? Did
anyone stop to think it might actually make them feel worse? Maybe a
big group hug from millions of television voyeurs wasn't such a great
idea?

During the sanctions imposed on Iraq for their invasion of Kuwait, lasting  
for twelve years from 1991 until 2003 when Saddam Hussein was finally 
toppled by the U.S. invasion, it is estimated that over 500,000 children died 
of malnutrition and lack of medical supplies and proper health care.

Articles reporting this horrible tragedy startedon the back pages and 
stayed there, or they disappeared entirely. There certainly was no outpouring 
of shared grief for the millions of Iraqi casualties resulting from our insidious 
foreign policies, including the death of over a half million children. 
No crocodile tears were shed outside of some very dedicated, truly caring 
on-the-ground aid organizations who saw first-hand the genocidal results 
of our cruel punishment of innocent civilians.

But there should have been.

What's the difference between Flight 370 and sanctions on Iraq?

While we had nothing to do with the vanishing of Malaysian Flight 370, 
we were directly responsible for the death of those innocent children. It 
was our government perpetrating this horror. We could have stopped it. 
We can  and should stopthings like this from ever happening again, because 
each one of us is implicitly involved. As citizens of a democracy, we are directly 
and personally responsible for the policies and actions that come out of our
often misguided representatives in Washington.

And when we murder 500,000 innocent children, that's something to cry about.

Unlike disappearing jetliners, it's something we could have done something about.

There is something we could do about right now.
 
Something we should and must do. That's ending the illegal, immoral,
and self-sabotaging murder of innocents with drones. It's estimated that  
just during the Obama presidency 2400 individuals have been killed by these 
impersonal weapons of our errant, self-defeating foreign policy. Estimates 
which run as high as 37% say many are completely innocent people, having 
absolutely no interest or role in terrorist activities against the U.S. or its allies, 
mere victims of our paranoid and extralegal campaign of assassinating militants. 
Often these folks were just attending weddings or other family events. 
A lot of the dead again are children.

The harsh truth is that we are all complicit in these murders. It's our government. 
It's our trigger-happy Congress and President who perpetuate this carnage.  
This is something we should be crying about.

Crying and yelling and screaming.

Do you feel it?



[ This originated at the author's personal web page . . . http://jdrachel.com ]