American politics

Cartoon by Ben Garrison

This is my last political post. I am so fed up with American politics that I cannot take it any more. I have been following the debt ceiling debate for the last few weeks. At the same time, the audit of the Federal Reserve was going on upon passing of a bill by Congress requesting the audit. Today the results of the first audit of the Federal Reserve were released. I was stunned, speechless and so angered by both issues that I almost had a heart attack. Well I'm done as of today.

I'm done with paying attention to American politics. I will go out of my way to not watch any news reports, read any news articles, engage in any discussions related to American politics. If I do, I will die. Simple as that. My heart will not be able to sustain the anger and frustration I will feel. Therefore, after the end of this post, there will be no more American politics in my life.

If you are of a sound mind, have been educated to a level of an average human being, and been raised with reasonable morals then you can see why am I so angry. I don't even know where to begin, there are so many things that I could talk about that anger me. First off, there are only two political parties and they are both crooked. The Americans don't even have a choice, as the cartoon above shows. No third party has ever gained significant amount of votes (read: more than one) in order to have any influence on the policies. Second, the entire Congress consists of rich people. The average net worth of a Congressman is times and times above the average American. There is no fucking way those rich bastards can represent the will of the people. Yet the Americans continue to elect them. Wait, the Americans don't elect them - the corporations do. That's the third point, the American voter actually has no influence on the election since no matter who is actually elected, that politician will vote in favor of the numerous corporations who donated money to his/her campaign.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here is what defines the Republicans: denial of the global warming; anti-gay stance; anti-abortion; anti-education (they actually want to teach creationism in schools! WTF!!!!); religion influencing the schools; low tax for the corporations so they can pay their fucking CEOs more money; taking away the bargaining rights of the union workers so the Koch brothers can pay their workers less and lower their cost; attacking other countries because USA is addicted to oil; reducing social programs such as social security, medicare, medicaid because you should only care about yourself and not your fellow man; deregulate so that the corporations can hike the prices, deliver low quality products, and slowly kill you along the way; lie about everything then blame it on the Democrats; purposely mislead people by using Fox News to flood the minds of the viewers with lies, inaccurate "facts", accidental "errors" in opinion polls or scientific studies or quotes or whatever is actually beneficial for the viewer to make an educated opinion about something; taking away personal freedoms in exchange for "a more secure America"; and so on.

Democrats are bad, not as bad as Republicans but they have also been paid off by the banks and corporations. Look at the results of the audit. $16 trillion went to the banks and other companies, not only in America, from the Federal Reserve. And these same banks are taking away people's homes, hiking interest rates on credit cards, charging enormous banking fees, literally stealing money on the stock market, causing the housing collapse, and so on. Both Democrats and Republicans allowed this to happen and they fucking knew it because they are both paid off by these same companies who received these bailouts. Jesus Christ, over $2 trillion to Citigroup but they want you to pay $35 for an overdraft of 15 cents?

Finally, let's talk about the debt ceiling as an example. The Democrats have actually decided to lower the spending by making cuts in absolutely most essential social programs (i.e. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid). The Democrats also want a moderate tax increases in order to make the rich pay their fair share, which would also help lower the deficit. Guess what? Republicans are not agreeing to it and are actually blaming Democrats for the fucking deficit. Republicans have for God knows how many years (since Reagan?) been claiming that if you lower taxes and decrease spending the economy will grow. But they have absolutely NO FACTS to back up this argument and people keep voting them in and agreeing with them. The taxes are at their lowest since the 1950's and they think the taxes are already high? Are you fucking kidding me? And since Bush enacted the tax cuts, the debt has gotten substantially larger yet the CEOs are making about 500 times the average worker (25 times the average worker in 1980s) while unemployment is high and dollar is losing value. So now the Republicans won't agree on the budget plan because they do not agree with the tax increases even though they have no proof that their policies work (not only do they not work, they literally cripple the economy; the only people that do well are the rich bastards who get to pay less tax).

What is the worst of it all? What is what takes me over the edge? It's is the mind boggling stupidity and ignorance of the majority of Americans. They are so blinded by the right-wing rhetoric and are fed so many lies that they cannot see through all the bullshit that the Republicans are feeding them. They don't actually use their own brain to make decisions; they just do whatever they are told. If Fox News tells them that to raise the debt ceiling would be a mistake and against everything Republicans stand for, then that's it. Fox News will not tell them that the same exact politicians have voted to increase the debt ceiling 7 TIMES DURING PRESIDENT BUSH. But hey, why allow facts to get in the way of good propaganda?

I guess I can't completely blame the Americans. They have shitty education, are constantly bombarded by corporate propaganda which takes away their focus from how badly they are getting screwed by those very same corporations, they work so much that they can't be bothered with political issues when they come home, their kids are brainwashed as we speak into believing Jesus will save them and being gay is evil ... ah, fuck it, I give up. I've lived 16 years in America and I've had enough.

I ran out of energy to write. I am so outraged by what I am writing that I can't even write coherent sentences. I will leave you with the wise words of one great comedian, George Carlin. He summarized it the best. On that note, I swear (to tell the truth and the whole truth ... whatever) that I will never talk about American politics again.

George Carlin on the American Dream


"….there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever,  EVER be fixed.

It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country, don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought—and paid for—the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want.  Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street—and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ‘cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.

By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue—these are people of modest means—continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.

They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL.  And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.

It’s called the American Dream—because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Not much to say today

I think the cartoon pretty much summarizes it. I've got nothing to say. Really, not much going on in my head right now. I'm watching a show where the guests are discussing Rupert Murdoch's testimony on the "News of the World" phone hacking scandal. There was nothing much on before that.

You see, I'm on a business trip and since I did not bring my guitar and I am not in my familiar surroundings, I'm pretty much thoughtless. We spent the day working then going to dinner and after all of that, I went back to my room. I really have nothing to write about.

On that note, I'm going to bed. Good night.

Reading

I enjoy reading. It has been a long time, I must admit, since I have read an entire book. It took me months to read the "Vanishing Face of Gaia" by James Lovelock. My friend gave it to me and even though it was a fairly easy read because it is a scientific book, it still took me a long time to finish it. These days I always find excuses not to read (too tired, have to get this and that done, forgot to bring the book on the plane, etc.). I am making a pledge to get back to reading and it is starting today.

Movies are enjoyable because they depict somebody's imagination. It is somebody else's imagination, not yours. Books, on the other hand, force you to invoke your own imagination. All books are just words on paper yet by reading those words, life awakes in front of your eyes. People's faces appear, you can see them smile, cry, witness their concern, feel their pain. Landscapes are displayed in your mind with trees, hills, rivers, birds, grass, stone, and so on. Eloquent words can describe a place or a setting in such a way that you feel like you are there, seeing it with your own eyes, touching it with your hands, feeling it with your skin, and hearing it with your ears. That is why books are so great - they stimulate your imagination.

I used to read all kinds of books when I was younger but as I grew older my taste has focused on two kinds of books, scientific and books based on real events. Fiction was my favorite when I was a kid and a teenager. I used to read the great Yugoslavian World War II stories written by Branko Copic. Oh, I enjoyed these because they had so much humor in them yet they dealt with a very serious issues of German occupation of Yugoslavia in WWII and with the battle for freedom. During the same time I use to read lots of UFO, mystery books, books that dealt with the paranormal because they were thought provoking and fascinating. Of course, I also read lots of fairy tales as a kid. Lately though I prefer books based on real events such as the D-Day (Stephen E. Ambrose). I guess simple fiction does not interest me as much any more unless it is somehow related to actual events or if it is exceptionally well written. I do read books which focus on scientific issues such as "The China Study" or "Vanishing Face of Gaia". Most of all though, the books that have captured my attention over the last few years are books about or from Bosnia.

My favorite book is "My War Gone By, I Miss It So" by Anthony Loyd. My friend Brendan suggested this book to me when I was visiting him in Canada (if I remember correctly). He read it and said that I might like it since majority of "action" happens in Bosnia. Wow. I was blown away while I was reading it and it enters my mind any time someone is talking about books. The book is essentially Anthony's life from 1992-1995 which he mostly spent in Bosnia, England and Chechnya. It is his life, not some fictional character and made up feelings. The stories that he tells are real, people are real, events are real. Please, please read this book if you haven't yet. It will grip you and will not let you go. You will feel every minute of Anthony's life and you will understand the horrors of war like you have never before.

Another book I would like to suggest is "Blood and Vengeance: One Family's Story of the War in Bosnia" by Chuck Sudetic. If you want to know the root of the conflict in the Balkans, this book will explain it to you, backed by historical research. On top of that, it is a tragic story of one Bosnian family which the author follows throughout the book. Again, it is a factual book, documenting real events happening to real people, as well as describing the history of the area known as Bosnia.

I'm off to bed now and will read a few pages of a book by a Bosnian author Mesa Selimovic. My mother bought me this book awhile back and even though it is in English, it is very well translated. I hope this post gets some of you to start reading again without finding stupid excuses. And read "My War Gone By, I Miss It So"!

Do you want to know what makes me cry?

I don't cry much. I am not a baby any more so I won't cry when I get hurt or when I'm hungry. There is no special reason for me to cry these days. I'm happy and there is nothing in my life that warrants sadness to the point where I would cry regularly.

But if there is one thing that consistently made me cry since I was 14, that would be anything reminding me of my country. Maybe to put it better, what makes me cry is anything reminding me of the good old days and the events that caused many of my countrymen and I to move out of Bosnia, not to mention the deaths of many people because of a horrible war. Watching a Bosnian movie that relates to the war or listening to a song from the old days would almost certainly bring tears to my eyes. It is difficult to hold the tears when a scene like above comes on. Actually, it is almost impossible.

The scene above is from a Bosnian movie "Remake". It was made in 2003 and it is a moving story not only because it encapsulates the war in Bosnia but also because how the story is told. In the scene, a young Bosnian man is asked to sing a song in front of the Bosnian Serb soldiers. He chooses to sing a song called "Il' Je Vedro Il' Oblacno". This song is an old Bosnian traditional song called "sevdalinka" or "sevdah". These songs were written long time ago and tell various stories, mostly about lost love. Some sevdah's are faster and comical but mostly are slow and emotional. If I listen to a particularly emotional sevdalinka, I will try very hard not to cry.

Today is consequently the Bosnian Day of Mourning. The Bosnian government decided that 11. of July will remind the people of the genocide in Srebrenica. I guess I could not find a better way to express my feelings than to let you listen to this song.

By the way, the full version of the song was recorded by a band "Kultur Shock". I like this version so here is the link: Kultur Shock - Il' Je Vedro Il' Oblacno.