Cut It All Right In Two

“Right in Two” from 10,000 Days by Tool

Angels on the sidelines,
Puzzled and amused,
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they’re all confused,

Don’t these talking moneys know that,
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys,
When there’s one you are bound to divide it,
Right in two,

Angels on the sidelines,
Baffled and confused,
Father blessed them all with reason,
And this what they choose,

Monkey killing monkey, killing monkey,
Over pieces of the ground,
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They forge a blade,
And when there’s one,
They’re bound to divide it,
Right in two,

Monkey killing monkey, killing monkey,
Over pieces of the ground,
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They make a club,
And beat their brother down,
How they survive so misguided is a mystery,

Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to life an eye to heaven conscious of his fleeting time here,

Cut it right all,
Right in two,

Fight over the clouds, over wind, over sky,
Fight over life, over blood, over prayer,
Over head and light,
Fight over love, over sun,
Over another, Fight…

Angels on the sideline again,
Benched along with patience and reason,
Angels on the sideline again,
Wondering when this tug of war will end,

Cut it right all,
Right in two,

Right in two…

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I cast the Judgment of Solomon upon my fellow Americans.

This swaddled child of fragile democracy passed down to us from generations of proud Americans shall be for neither the leftwing nor the rightwing — we shall divide it in half. For we cannot come to terms and no aggrieved party shall ever be satisfied henceforth.

Just as the internet already has become complete in its utter division and quartering-off into tightly bound untouching spheres; as shall the the Union be broken forever and the United States shattered to nothing but individual states so that if any union is to be formed it may be formed anew. The same sword that the slew the free web should also slay the entire United States for the electronic landscape is but a mere reflection of what we are as a modern people and as a modern society.

We as a people, as a political and deliberating body, do not communicate any longer and as such it is time to crush the false former preconception that there is such a structure in this world called “The United States of America” as such an entity does not currently exist.

There is but one fair solution: we part our ways from the notion of unity altogether.

People need not tolerate one another any longer, we shall cast our entire social structure into rigid fixtures that do not touch one another. People need not be confused by differing views any longer, we shall keep our intellectuals isolated unto themselves in tight-knit groups that do interact with each other let alone the outside world.

Freedom and liberty can be redefined, just as morality and justice have been in the present day.

We will survive, but first we have to lay down and die.

We will thrive, but first we must lay our head in the guillotine.

Hit Glenn Beck Where it Hurts

The left loves to hate him and the right loves to worship him, but Glenn Beck has crossed a line and only those who fail in supporting racial equality continue to support him past this point.

The way to get race baiting off the airwaves is not screaming into the phone nor creating a blog.

It is to go after the advertisers.

ColorOfChange.org has a petition to stop the race baiting on FOX News.

I encourage you to join me in signing it.

Bipartisan Blogging Dies at Birth

When I first set forth to imprint myself upon the wildly evolving beast of the blogosphere I held with me a tenuous goal: to create a fully bipartisan blog.

A place that would be both policy and ideology neutral, yet dealt in real news topics.

While the value of this concept in itself still appears quite sound in my mind, I discovered through personal experience that throwing that concept away was the best thing I ever did for my blog as a rank amateur in the mix. (Still working on that.)

Blogger tis I:

My posting entitled “Ann Coulter Still Sucks” was one of first impressions unto this wild animal of internet-posting that I can claim to my credit. Every word of that is partisanship, I am completely unashamed.

My posting entitled “The Libra-Scorpio Cusp” is enjoyed by many. I point out an internet inconsistency between websites and briefly address my feelings on Astrology.

Recently I was honored to have received an Editor’s Pick on Open Salon for what accounts to the end result of these bipartisan efforts of mine.

I thank the Editors of Open Salon for the honor in being selected.

In course of presenting the issue of Jimmy Carter’s words concerning race in America, I unconsciously fell into my routine of trying to revive the lost art of bipartisanship.

I presented the words of Alan Wilson rebuking the words of Carter directly as to any racial motives in his father Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst.

I withheld the words of what I view as righteous indignation and retained myself to news-commentary.

However, my truly Bipartisan Blogging is dead. I fully intend to address every issue that I view as significant regardless of the possible offense drawn from that perspective.

Once you mix an opinion with a platform, you get punditry. Once the opinion is interjected into the Left versus Right Debate, it is already too late.

What remains within me though are the principals of striving toward fair play and equal consideration of alternative perspectives, and still with my own case intact. The value of this bipartisanship effort is lost, but the spirit remains intact. The reason being for this loss, in my view, has to do this the source from which it comes.

Despite all reports to the contrary, I am not a big deal.

The person to revive journalistic standards in the United States, is not I.

I instead must cry out into the wilderness to capture this beast, while those within the press need only touch a laptop. So is the way of things. But while ‘truth’ can be subjective, the facts are not.

—

“You can have your own opinion, but you don’t get to chose your own facts.”

—

I make a great many declarative statements in the course of blogging, formed primarily from simple political and media analysis, which accounts to online punditry.

But I believe strongly in full disclosure of the fact that I am a liberal and freely admit it may alter my world view in some cases.

But the facts don’t lie, and I believe in the growing majority of cases the facts are on my side.

Pointing Fingers:

It could be said that I am extremely critical of the right wing in US Politics.

If one were to ever take the time to read backwards into my blog it can be found that I have tried to draw a line between “Thinking Conservatives” and “Limited Conservatives“.

Other times I have directly defended the specific quotes of both Carrie Prejean and Rick Warren.

Treading this line in not some political game on my part, but rather my honest opinion on those matters.

I believe that is what we have escaped from in the madness of mass computing and super-fast news-cycles. Partisanship sells books as much as it moves blog-hits, so perhaps some of these political shock jocks like Ann Coulter would rather be reasonable in her arguments, but it simply doesn’t pay the bills.

The truth being what is lost in this exchange, and I think that sort of thing is a shame.

I would much rather have a discussion in disagreement than just label others as “tools”, “fascists”, “un-American”, or “racists”.

But that creation of mine that might cross party lines, and maybe bring sanity to the mix to see what happens will have to wait for a another day. The raw truth of opinion should not replace factual evidence. Such is the road to tyranny.

So I have taken another road. I drew a line in the sand that allows me to say what I will of Republicans, or Democrats.

For instance, the Republican Party is currently self-destructing and the Democratic Party has dropped the ball on health care reform.

Such statements embody my current stage in blogging evolution.

Finale:

The spirit of political bipartisanship and the need for balance remains within me, but the middle ground is now mainly unattainable without the acceptance of false claims and baseless assertions. Any critical review of facts debunks most conservative mantras.

There is much to be said for ideological differences enhancing a debate but when the debate is centered around misrepresentations and sweeping accusations of assumed wrong-doing there simply to no room in which to move in.

I will most likely continue to be mistaken for a conservative by both machines that dictate ad banners and internet users alike, but this just a by-product of my attempt to split everything down the middle.

To me, most these differences are best settled in the voting booth at election time.

But if the accuracy of the information we receive is suspect and unverifiable then we have a responsibility as citizens to recognize this fact.

This tense political and social division has forever been an element of American Life, but I believe that the situation is amplified by media-giants who profit from the repetition of partisan smears of any person or group.

I can only pray for a day of more a more honest and non-biased form of journalism catching the eye of the American public, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Eric Lightborn

http://ericlightborn.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/EricLightborn

September 29th 2009

Obama is Not Perfect

Well everyone has to make mistakes, right?

So this is what we got going on that nobody cares enough about you to tell you in the newsmedia:

Obama has dropped the ball on this round of health care reform.

This is not the say he is now failing as president, or anything else the hate-mongers on the rightwing are sure to say.

But this is the first major misstep of The 44th US President.

There are a whole multitude of reasons, most of which very technical and are not coming to mind right now, (and very boring to cover) but as I prefer to ‘cut to the chase’ I’ll just say it like this:

Obama and The Democrats have failed, and failed utterly, to properly sell good health care reform to be proposed in the Congress.

—

I’m going to give you all a brief lesson in sales … pay attention:

The first thing you do is explain the value. Is this highly valuable or moderately valuable or barely valuable? Are we talking about a gold-plated coffee maker, or a plastic one? Is this car made for the long haul, or just for going to the store and back?

The second thing you do is explain the benefits. Are these the greatest benefits you could possibly have or just fine benefits or perhaps no benefit exists at all? Will you be better off in a few seconds after owning this or will you be better off in two months or will you never be better for owning this?

—

All the Democrats and President Obama have succeeded in doing at this stage is explaining what this bill won’t do.

Not one of them has succeeded in properly conveying the value and benefit of public health care options, nor have they properly conveyed the value and benefit of saving money in a exasperated system.

Call me vastly arrogant, but I feel they need to put my over-the-top with conviction self on this issue. I am a Progressive Reformist to the bone, and I think perhaps that is exactly what is lacking in the Democratic Party these days.

It seems to me the political will to get this done is floating away from the Democrats now that we are faced with actually doing it. After years of campaigning on health care reform, specifically what we are talking about as to medical insurance reform, these same people seem to lost their thunder as the moment in upon them to roar.

I chalk this up to the nature of people and nature of the real world.

President Obama has done an excellent job in terms of foreign affairs and the national security agenda, but seems to have some trouble working toward this particular domestic policy agenda at this time.

In the end, we the people cannot rely on any one political figure or any one group to get what we need from our government.

The fight goes on, and if they fail to achieve meaningful reform then we will pick up this battle once more in days yet to come.

And perhaps in those days yet to be before us, someone can explain clearly and passionately why we need health care reform in the US.

One can only hope….

Rush Limbaugh is Dr. Evil

The Radio Comedian Rush Limbaugh is best understood as a real-life version of the character Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.

Plotting and scheming in some ceramic bunker with his inner-circle of minions, his many Snurgly clones of course, gathered round to hear his daily machinations delivered via flashy jumpsuit!

In The Comedian’s case the issue is just to constantly stay in the news and stay relevant to someone, somewhere.

A lot of people seem to think we need an Anti-Limbaugh, or an Austin Powers, to appear and vanquish this foe. I think that Dr. Evil’s Empire falls apart when people start catching on to his game.

It’s all a house of cards of his own making. His own minions would throw him away if he ever had a level-headed view of anything to do with President Obama. The jackals would consume their master in a heartbeat if he stepped off his “ordained path” even in the slightest.

So Dr. Evil plays his game and works his magic, but when people can see the same of tired bag of tricks again and again they tend to catch on.

“Pet my Snurgly! Pet him!”

Zeitgeist

Isn’t it amazing how Zeitgeist can be so right, and yet so wrong.

Alex Jones is a Liar

Scare you into buying stuff. That and ask you to connect the dots with little scraps of information and pieces of truthfulness that are supposed to form his credibility.

The man is selling his goods and using fear to market them. He cares nothing for our nation. He cares nothing for democracy and representative government.

Jones is one of most dangerous broadcasters on the airwaves only because he masks himself in patroitism and a need to inform the public. Which is untrue.

If there was a serious effort on his show to share all perspectives on the so-called ‘globalist agenda’ he would not constantly try to destroy those who question his credibility and motives.

The man is classically known for challenging the current Executive Branch.

Then he claims himself to be ‘not rigtht or left’ while he lies and slanders Obama with mere perspective in the absence of any facts. Yet he tells us they are facts. He would challenge everything I’ve said and he has not a leg to stand on.

You can’t prove a negative. If the conspriracy is so wide-spread that nobody can detect it beyond these low-credibility sources he brings forth then it is not true nor untrue. It remains unfounded.

Alex Jones is attempting to reject science and common sense and in place accept fear and idiocy as a standard of living.

Go plant your ‘crisis garden’ and hide under your bed from the ‘global elites’ if you buy this garbage.

Jones is laughing at you while his bank account grows and his ratings go up.

I fight the ‘power’ everday. Let it be known. This man is part of the power structure. His unwillingness to do anything but bash anyone who challenges him is proof enough for me.

All those who carry his signal are supporting a destruction of represenative government.

All those who worship his message have obviously not done their homework.

Loyal Opposition No More

For many years I have felt that for all our disagreements between liberal and conservative individuals in the U.S., there was a shared position by both sides. A loyal opposition to the opposition, if you will.

For the time being, as since the election of Democratic President Barack Obama, I believe the majority of the conservatives of America have thrown down this national system of civil loyalty in politics in place of a pure obstructionist agenda.

The Party of “No!” is not conservative, nor liberal, it is pure nihilism in place of understanding.

I have not heard any amount of logical rebuttal to an Obama Policy or policy proposal, except in very rare cases.

I find I cannot listen to the standard bearers of GOP right-wing radio these days. Like most people I have my “hang-ups.”

Dismissive attitudes, a complete lack of humility and screaming people down end up on my list.

Every time I have been listening to conservative talk radio, or GOP responses, since the election of Barack Obama I am disgusted by the complete lack of integrity and grace in politics. Every word a smear, every point a spin.

Reducing everything down to simply “look at who is doing the name-calling” is not the issue. Though it is important thing to avoid name-calling as much as possible.

Not sticking to the facts about our democratic representatives and our recent national historical facts is unpatriotic.

I wish it were not so, and no group can claim to innocent of some form of vitriol in these times. But if something I say amounts to “name-calling” then I’m afraid it must be so. But understand I don’t say such things in a state of glee as we see from others screaming rational people down.

I find it offensive that in a matter of weeks all our politics have reduced to childishness and fear-mongering about the government.

Instead of having an actual political dialogue they insist on presenting “vague-facts” along with connect-the-dots logic, which is simply dirty pool politics.